XChange: VMware, APC Eye Data Center Growth

During a vendor panel Tuesday at XChange Solution Provider 2013 in Orlando, Fla., executives from VMware and APC discussed new areas of growth within the data center.

Frank Rauch, vice president of VMware's Americas Partner Organization, said his company has identified three key markets for 2013, all of which touch the data center.

[Related: XChange: IBM Helping Partners Capture Cloud, Analytics Opportunities ]

"We wanted to go into markets that are growing at 20 percent [compound annual growth rate]," Rauch said.

Those markets include software-defined data center, or data center automation platforms; hybrid clouds that combine public and private cloud offerings; and mobility and mobile device management. In addition, Rauch told the solution provider audience that VMware will be making a major hybrid cloud announcement sometime in the next 30 days.

Rob McKernan, president of APC Americas, meanwhile, said his company sees 75 percent of its business concentrated in the data center. "New data centers are growing at about 8 [percent] to 10 percent a year," McKernan said. "It's a very good market to be in."

Specifically, APC sees major growth ahead for energy management for the data center as businesses look to cut costs around cooling, space and power consumption. Energy efficiency is really becoming a strong play, McKernan said, adding that APC sees growing interest in green IT this year.

Both Rauch and McKernan said their respective companies will be making it a priority this year to help partners move into these new data center segments and help them develop solutions around such areas as software-defined data centers and energy management.

PUBLISHED MARCH 12, 2013