Did you miss the Virtual SMB Partner Town Hall & Summit on May 17^th? If so, it’s not too late to view the videos or download the presentations directly from our Partner Virtual Event Platform. We’re giving partners 24x7 access to this material. You’ll find sessions covering a variety of topics, including my review of VMware’s SMB business, an update on Partner Program incentives, and training on VMware’s SMB Solution Stack.  Tune in to our guest speakers delivering their best strategies for successful sales demonstrations, creating compelling customer proposals and increasing deal size.  I found a lot of value in those sessions and I think you will too. In addition, we’ve posted a variety of SMB sales resources such as whitepapers, calls scripts and “cheat sheets”. In short, you’ll find all the enablement training and tools you need to help you successfully sell VMware solutions to your sub 1000 employee sized customers!

For all the Partners that were able to attend the SMB Summit – Thank you for making the time and please send us your feedback on the event. We’re always working on making things better and your guidance certainly helps. Click here to get view the material. Good Selling and let's finish Q2 strong!

Brandon Sweeney - VP, Channel Sales Americas

I would like to follow up on an article we posted last month, which introduced Federal Partner Exchange. The third annual VMware Federal Partner Exchange took place on April 5^th. This all-day event was dedicated to our Federal Channel Partner community and is designed for sales, business development, technical and professional services personnel. The partners who attended this successful event were provided with valuable and action-packed tips, best practices, tools and contacts to help increase the velocity of their Federal sales. 

We heard great feedback from our partners about this event: Jason Chung, VP of Software Alliances, at MicroTech said, “Fantastic event to help us win in the Federal marketing with VMware” and Brittany Bigelow, Account Executive at August Schell said, “Great learning how to advance our partnership with VMware Federal on Cloud sales opportunities.” 

Missed out on attending the event? You can view photos from the event here or view the presentations here. The username is vmware and password is vmwarefedpex2011.

Reminder: US Federal Prospecting Day is confirmed for Tuesday, May 24! Save the date and expect more details in the next week.

If you have any questions about this event or other Federal segment marketing-related topics, please contact Giovanni Estrada at gestrada@vmware.com.

Alex Hart - Sr. Director, Public Sector Channel Sales

VMware is hosting our first SMB Partner Quarterly Townhall on May 17th and all of our SMB partners are invited to participate in this online event!  I’ll be kicking off the Townhall with a “State-of-the-SMB-Business” address, including an overview of VMware’s SMB strategy, our commitment to Partner incentives and investments, a look at the competitive landscape and the launch of our SMB Enablement Program. We’ll also have Russ Stockdale, VP & GM, Small and Mid-Size Business Products, deliver a presentation on VMware’s SMB Solution Stack.

We are especially excited about our guest speakers at the SMB Townhall: Dr. Tom Sant, Author of Persuasive Business Proposals; Founder and Principal, Hyde Park Partners; and Peter Cohen, Founder and Principal, The Second Derivative. Peter and Tom are two of the industry’s leading experts on sales & business development and we’ve invited them to share their expertise and discuss sales best practices for winning new business and increasing your profitability!

VMware’s success in the SMB space is dependent upon the success of our SMB Partners – so be sure to take advantage of this unique opportunity to get the latest SMB news and updates from VMware, as well as gain insights on sales strategies to help you close more business and increase deal size! There is enormous market opportunity in the sub-1000 employee segment as, together, we help our customers and prospects on their Journey to the Cloud.  We also have some great Customer, Partner and Partner Rep incentives to help close business in Q2 so please join on the 17th to learn more. Details can be found at www.vmware.com/go/partner/virtualexperience/smb.

Good Selling and see you on the 17th!

Brandon Sweeney - VP, Channel Sales Americas

Earlier this week you heard the announcement of how VMware Advances VMware View™ and End-User Computing Solutions for the Post-PC Era. The VMware end-user computing portfolio seeks to free employees and IT organizations from more than two decades of complex, device-centric computing, and delivers a more user-centric experience for the connected enterprise.

We know that many of you have customers who are anxiously awaiting the new capabilities and availability of View 5.1  and  VMware Horizion Application Manager 1.5. With this release, partners, you can help your customers:   

• Significantly improve what they have now by virtualizing Windows applications and desktops with  View 5.1 and ThinApp.
• Securely embrace the cloud at the pace of their business with the new VMware Horizon Application Manager 1.5 for policy management of public and private cloud assets
• Escape to their cloud with new ways to manage data, deliver legacy applications and adopt new social applications, such as: 
  • Project Octopus - IT managed, secure data share and sync. Public Beta will be available in May.
  • Zimbra – Extensible email and collaboration platform
  • Socialcast - Enterprise social networking

 New on-demand video training sessions are now available – visit the Partner University EUC Home Page to find a list of on-demand video training sessions for Sales, Technical Pre-Sales and Technical Post-Sales.

The VMware End User Computing Learning Paths enable partners of all types to reiterate the EUC vision and articulate a unified VMware strategy as the leader in End User Computing and demonstrate our progress towards this goal. We wish you success and encourage you to get trained today!

Vivek Chhabria, Director, Global Partner Readiness

On April 23, 2012, our security team became aware of the public posting of a single file from the VMware ESX source code dating back to 2004, and the possibility that more files may be posted in the near future. Ensuring customer security is our top priority. As a matter of best practices with respect to security, VMware strongly encourages all customers to apply the latest product updates and security patches made available for their specific environment. As part of its regular program of providing patches for security and other issues, VMware has accelerated the delivery of a set of software patches for specific product releases that may be exposed to increased risk. We encourage all customers to view the following links to determine if appropriate patches are available for products in their environment: kb.vmware.com/kb/2019941 and www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2012-0009.html.

By applying the combination of the most current product updates and the relevant security patches, we believe our customer environments will be best protected. As is our practice, VMware will continue to assess any further security risks, and will continue to provide updates and patches as appropriate. 

As always, we welcome any security-related concerns to be shared with VMware via the following channels: 

• Support requests - www.vmware.com/support 

• Community forums - communities.vmware.com 

• Twitter - @VMwarecares 

• Calling Customer Service at 1-877-486-9273 (option 4) or www.vmware.com/support/us_support.html for global numbers 

My VMware had a successful first week with our partners and customers across the globe. Early in the week, customers and partners experienced some issues with access and stability of the environment due to high-volume traffic. We are committed to providing an exceptional experience and are continuing to work through these matters.

 We appreciate your patience and support. Please continue to send us feedback! We’ve already made a lot of progress and your input is helping us target specific areas of concern, and guiding our improvement roadmap.

It is important for Partners to understand My VMware and its impact on your business. Learn more with My VMware: Partner Basics, a short five minute introduction to My VMware that covers the key things to you need to know. Then follow up with role-based training available on Partner University.  

Top Things You Need To Know:

1. Understand New Terms:

• Entitlement Account (EA): All existing VMware customers have an account number that is crucial to all orders placed.
• Super User (SU):  Every account must have a SU who is the primary contact between the customer account and VMware.
• Procurement Contact (PC): This individual manages products and support information. Responsible for support levels & status compliance, renewal

2. Include the Entitlement Account (EA) Number with Orders

3. Use the EA Lookup Tool to find your customer's EA number

To learn more, Partners should start with the My VMware Partner Basics presentation, a five-minute training video that covers the basics they will need to know about My VMware.

Additional training, including role-based training is outlined below:

My VMware: Partner 101
A 20 minute eLearning course; pre-requisite for role-based My VMware training courses for Order Management, Tier 1 Customer Support and Customer Product Licenses/Support. (available: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, and French)

My VMware: Order Management Overview
A 10 minute eLearning course recommended training for all order desk personnel handling VMware orders and licensing. (available: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, and French)
 
My VMware: Providing Tier 1 Customer Support
A25 minute eLearning course recommended for partners delivering Tier 1 support to VMware customers. (available: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, and French)
 
My VMware: Managing Customer Product Licenses/Support
A 25 minute eLearning course recommended for partner managing licenses and support on behalf of their customers. (available: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, and French) 

vmLIVE  
 To date,  we have hosted 16 My VMware vmLIVE sessions. All vmLIVE recorded sessions can be found on Partner University

VMware License Expert 1.1 (VLE) has been updated to include My VMware. Current holder of the VLE accreditation will be encouraged to complete the upgrade path. Please visit Partner University for more information.

Additional Resources:
o   Partner Central
o   My VMware Partner Microsite
o   Partner FAQs  

Sandra Glaser Cheek, Director, Global Partner Communications and Programs Marketing