Omnissa, The Former VMware EUC Business, Launches New Partner Program
Omnissa solution providers should see a faster, more lucrative partner program than before as the vendor migrates nearly 100 percent away from providing services, moving that to the channel, says Kevin Norlin, senior vice president of global sales and head of revenue.
Kevin Norlin, the Mountain View, Calif.-based digital work platform vendor’s senior vice president of global sales and head of revenue, said that Omnissa solution providers should see a faster, more lucrative partner program than before as the vendor migrates nearly 100 percent away from providing services, moving that to the channel.
“It’s not a joke to say millions of dollars—a lot of people, time and money—to get to this point,” Norlin said. “It is a pretty critical part of our business, percentagewise.”
[RELATED: IGEL CEO Oestermann Says Vendor ‘Is Growing Like Gangbusters’ On Multiple Fronts]
Omnissa Partner Investments
Brian Campbell, vice president of digital experience for CDW—No. 5 on CRN’s 2024 Solution Provider 500—told CRN in an interview that Omnissa’s technology, which allows for greater device choice and more application use, translates to a better experience for customers.
Employers embracing hybrid work environments with some remote-work days and some days in the office remains an opportunity for CDW and other Omnissa partners, Campbell said.
“Our job and Omnissa’s job is to ensure that that you don’t sacrifice anything with the experience,” he said.
VMware Independence
Omnissa became independent of VMware and VMware parent Broadcom in July after investment firm giant KKR bought the business for about $4 billion.
Norlin said that users were watching the post-KKR Omnissa for pricing and business changes similar to what happened at VMware after Broadcom bought it in 2023 and at Citrix after Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital took the vendor private in 2022 and merged it with Tibco under the name Cloud Software Group.
“Now they see that we’re far enough through the transition into being owned by KKR that we’ve stabilized our business, and we’ve stayed true to our word,” he said. “We’re going to be a fair provider and supplier and partner. They’ve moved from relief to belief.”
Although Norlin didn’t name Citrix as a competitor, both vendors have published articles about why their products are superior for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and other virtualization technologies. He expects 6 percent to 8 percent growth of the market over the next three years, with growth of connected devices a factor.
Omnissa has about $1.5 billion in annual recurring revenue, 4,000 employees and 26,000 customers worldwide, the company revealed last year. Omnissa has seen particular industry growth in health care and government, Norlin said. The vendor also continues to see progress in financial services, retail and other verticals.
On the product innovation side, Omnissa has been leveraging artificial intelligence to create a more autonomous workspace with guided root cause analyses, more self-healing and self-configuring and even an AI assistant named Omni entering beta this year.
“We’re a new entity, but we still have the same proven technology,” he said. “These aren’t new products. They’re proven. They’re reliable. We’ve got a pretty significant spot in the market, and we are seeing new customers come over.”
Projects Over Products
The vendor is leaning on partners at this time to help with a better focus on projects over products, he said. “It’s more important with our partners, we focus more on the customer outcome,” he said. “If we achieve that, the partner will probably do well. We’ll probably do well. And the customer will do well.”
VMware independence has freed Omnissa for better decision-making, Norlin said. While EUC was a small division of VMware, now “every dollar that we are able to earn in the market, we can reinvest it back into our people, our processes and our products,” Norlin said.
“We’re unfiltered and we can just focus on some very core missions,” he said. “We can go so broad and address so many different use cases that most of our other players in the market don’t have the same value proposition.”
Partners can position Omnissa as a vendor consolidation play for managing devices by a variety of hardware makers, for security, for role-based access control and other use cases. Consolidated spend could resonate with customers concerned about budget pressure and economic uncertainty as the U.S. and other countries levy tariffs.
Norlin said the vendor is open to new partners joining the program. The new program features a three-tier system for Platinum, Gold and Silver partnerships. The program also accounts for three business models—reseller, service provider and technology partner.
Partners receive front-end margin increases, joint account team access, training funds and other incentives and benefits, according to Omnissa. Training and certifications for Omnissa’s Workspace One and Horizon offers are available and tailored to different partner business models.
The program has a performance-based progression framework and a points-based rewards system for accomplishments across transactions and service delivery. A dashboard with real-time program performance insight is “coming soon,” according to the vendor.
Norlin said partners can look forward to deeper partnership between Omnissa and a variety of OEMs. Omnissa has recently said it is supporting new Apple MacBook Air, iPad Air and Mac Studio models as well as integrating Omnissa’s Workspace One Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) with Microsoft Entra ID to support shared device mode on Android devices.
Omnissa has also launched an Intel vPro chip-to-cloud integration with the One UEM and new integration support with Zebra LifeGuard Over the Air (OTA), among other advancements, according to the vendor.
