HPE bets on partners with new channel-only offerings

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HPE has kicked off its Partner Growth Summit in Las Vegas by announcing it's moving more of its products to a channel-only route to market on the back of success with HMP Morpheus VM Essentials.

From 1 July, HPE SimpliVity PC1000, HPE Private Cloud PC3000, and HPE Zerto Software will all only be available from partners. This builds not he announcement last year that HPE Morpheus VM Essentials would only be available through channel partners.

Since taking that decision, the company has seen "tremendous impact and momentum across the partner ecosystem", according to Kristian Kerr, hybrid channel lead at HPE.

"We've got 700 more partners that have sold VME software in the last 12 months, and over 1300 partners have taken up the certifications since November when we launched them," Kerr told press and analysts.

HPE Morpheus VM Essentials channel update

HPE Morpheus VM Essentials isn't being left as simply the first step in this process. HPE Morpheus VM Essentials for Partner IT Program, or VM Essentials for Partner IT for brevity, allows partners to deploy VM Essentials into their IT environment free of charge for the first three years, with a "nominal" support fee.

According to Kerr, this means they will have the chance to not only "benefit from the significant virtualization savings" but also build their own competencies.

"We're going to be making this available to around 600 partners who will gain the private cloud with virtualization competency by the end of the year, so a huge step forward, just in terms of channel only," he added.

New support for cloud service providers

Another announcement coming out of HPE Partner Growth Summit is a new product aimed at cloud service providers.

HPE CloudOps Software for cloud service providers allows these businesses to build, operate, and monetize different kinds of private cloud service with the support of HPE Partner Ready Vantage, the company claimed.

"This HPE Cloud Permit model further enhances the value with preferential pricing for these service providers, and it's going to be tied to committed spend," Kerr said.

In addition to all of this, HPE has also announced it's wrapping up Juniper's partner program, Partner Advantage, into HPE Partner Ready Vantage. Partner Ready Vantage was announced in November 2025.

Juniper specialisations will be incorporated into HPE competencies, and memberships will be mapped from Partner Advantage to Partner Ready Vantage over the course of the year. For example, Elite Plus Juniper partners will become Platinum members in the networking centre of HPE Partner Ready Vantage.

Following HPE Partner Growth Summit, the main HPE Discover 2026 conference will kick off on Tuesday 16 June. You can follow all the latest announcements and analysis from the event here.

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Jane McCallion is Managing Editor of ITPro and ChannelPro, specializing in data centers, enterprise IT infrastructure, and cybersecurity. Before becoming Managing Editor, she held the role of Deputy Editor and, prior to that, Features Editor, managing a pool of freelance and internal writers, while continuing to specialize in enterprise IT infrastructure, and business strategy.

Prior to joining ITPro, Jane was a freelance business journalist writing as both Jane McCallion and Jane Bordenave for titles such as European CEO, World Finance, and Business Excellence Magazine.