In this VMware Explore 2025 conversation, Tara Fine, America’s channel chief at Broadcom, and Pierre Cayouette, VMware practice lead at Pellera Technologies, join theCUBE’s John Furrier and Rebecca Knight to unpack how VMware’s partner landscape is changing under Broadcom. Fine details how the Advantage Partner Program has been simplified and redefined to reward capabilities, enablement and services – not just bookings – while aligning tightly with field teams so partners can drive adoption and consumption of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0. Cayouette introduces Pellera – formed from Mainline Information System and Converge Technology Solutions – now a $4B, 3,200-employee powerhouse with deep technical bench strength, and explains how its cross-practice “VMware SWAT team” is meeting accelerating customer demand as VCF 9.0 brings AI into scope and shifts partners from product resellers to platform integrators.
The discussion dives into the “higher bar” for partners: Broadcom is no longer competing on services, creating significant professional services opportunities for those who invest in certifications and real delivery capability. Fine outlines a points-based system that recognizes certifications, services and volume, with tiers (Pinnacle, Premier, Select) and free enablement to accelerate partner readiness. Cayouette shares how Pellera doubled down (growing VCF expertise, earning its first “VCF knight,” elevating more C-level platform conversations, and helping customers eliminate silos) while emphasizing that partners of all sizes can participate if they bring the right skills and outcomes. It’s a candid look at how VCF 9.0, professional services-first incentives and tighter field alignment are reshaping the modern ecosystem for Private Cloud and AI-ready operations.
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Tara Fine, Broadcom & Pierre Cayouette, Pellera Technologies
In this VMware Explore 2025 conversation, Tara Fine, America’s channel chief at Broadcom, and Pierre Cayouette, VMware practice lead at Pellera Technologies, join theCUBE’s John Furrier and Rebecca Knight to unpack how VMware’s partner landscape is changing under Broadcom. Fine details how the Advantage Partner Program has been simplified and redefined to reward capabilities, enablement and services – not just bookings – while aligning tightly with field teams so partners can drive adoption and consumption of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0. Cayouette introduces Pellera – formed from Mainline Information System and Converge Technology Solutions – now a $4B, 3,200-employee powerhouse with deep technical bench strength, and explains how its cross-practice “VMware SWAT team” is meeting accelerating customer demand as VCF 9.0 brings AI into scope and shifts partners from product resellers to platform integrators.
The discussion dives into the “higher bar” for partners: Broadcom is no longer competing on services, creating significant professional services opportunities for those who invest in certifications and real delivery capability. Fine outlines a points-based system that recognizes certifications, services and volume, with tiers (Pinnacle, Premier, Select) and free enablement to accelerate partner readiness. Cayouette shares how Pellera doubled down (growing VCF expertise, earning its first “VCF knight,” elevating more C-level platform conversations, and helping customers eliminate silos) while emphasizing that partners of all sizes can participate if they bring the right skills and outcomes. It’s a candid look at how VCF 9.0, professional services-first incentives and tighter field alignment are reshaping the modern ecosystem for Private Cloud and AI-ready operations.
play_circle_outlineTransforming Partnerships: Valuing Capabilities Over Bookings in VMware's Evolving Private Cloud Ecosystem and Service Provider Landscape
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play_circle_outlineThe bar for partnerships has increased, focusing on capabilities and certifications.
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play_circle_outlineProfessional services represent a significant profit opportunity for partners under the new program.
Tara Fine, Broadcom & Pierre Cayouette, Pellera Technologies
Tara Fine
Americas Channel ChiefBroadcom
Pierre Cayouette
VMware Practice LeadPellera Technologies
In this VMware Explore 2025 conversation, Tara Fine, America’s channel chief at Broadcom, and Pierre Cayouette, VMware practice lead at Pellera Technologies, join theCUBE’s John Furrier and Rebecca Knight to unpack how VMware’s partner landscape is changing under Broadcom. Fine details how the Advantage Partner Program has been simplified and redefined to reward capabilities, enablement and services – not just bookings – while aligning tightly with field teams so partners can drive adoption and consumption of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0. Cayouette intro...Read more
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What is the role of partners in the context of VMware’s offerings, particularly regarding VCF 9.0?add
What is the significance of the new developments in AI for companies like VMware and their partners?add
What is the significance of VMware's changes in professional service offerings for partners and customers?add
Tara Fine, Broadcom & Pierre Cayouette, Pellera Technologies
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Rebecca Knight
>> Good afternoon everyone, and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of VMware Explorer. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. Alongside my co-host and analyst, John Furrier. We've got a great conversation because one thing that is really clear about being here at VMware Explorer is that the partner ecosystem is vastly changed and it is thriving.>> Yeah. And Broadcom's business performance has been phenomenal. Look at the stock price of the company, but VMware specifically has executed on the product side and the business results are great that will translate into the ecosystem, the channel partners, and ultimately the customer values. This just be great to fun to unpack what's going on.
Rebecca Knight
>> A perfect segue to introduce our next guest. We have Tara Fine, America's channel chief at Broadcom. Thank you so much for coming on theCUBE, Tara.
Tara Fine
>> Thanks for having me.
Rebecca Knight
>> And Pierre Cayouette, VMware practice lead at Pellera Technologies. Thank you both so much for coming on.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Thanks for having us.
Rebecca Knight
>> So I'm going to start with you, Tara, because last year at Explorer we talked about it being a moment of change for the partner ecosystem and a big year of change for partners in general. How has the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program evolved since then?
Tara Fine
>> Yeah, so last year we talked a lot about simplification and optimizing really our portfolio and our programs. And so we've really spent the last year redefining our partner program, pulling all of our partners into the Advantage Partner Program and really taking a look at our ecosystem and saying who's all in and really making some decisions around that. In terms of the actual program itself and how it's evolved, there's a few really important points. Number one is around the value that the partners provide. So it goes well beyond bookings the way it used to be. It really is around capabilities, enablement, services and really recognizing our partners for what they can deliver for our customers. Excellent.
Rebecca Knight
>> Really rewarding that loyalty too, the who's all in. Pierre, talk to us a little bit about Pellera Technologies. What do you do?
Pierre Cayouette
>> Yes. Well first of all, nobody knows Pellera because we didn't exist as of a month ago roughly. Pellera is the result of Mainline information system, a thirty-five-year experience company and Converge Technology Systems fusing. So coming together for those who know Converge, Converge is the result of 36 acquisition. So we are a 4 billion powerhouse now with 3,200 employees. About half of those being in technical on a technical side. So the idea is to develop deep expertise but also wide because we address all sides of the data center basically.>> So you're been servicing customers for years in different areas, the combinations together-
Pierre Cayouette
>> Absolutely.... >> new brand?
Pierre Cayouette
>> Yes.>> Okay. Take us through the relationship now with the VMware's new system because one of the things about private Cloud, it's not like the yesterday's version of VMware, very disaggregated, got a lot of ecosystem, thousand flowers blooming a lot of people building on top. Now, it's very intentional. It's essentially rolling out a huge system. So the partnerships are different, which means the service contracts that you guys do are different. Can you share the new playbook of what a partner does on behalf of VMware? We entered earlier University of Bristol, their partner runs all the action. They focus on their game. So the role of the partner isn't the classic reselling the license or whatever and then bolting on some services. This is like different ballgame. So lay it all out for us.
Tara Fine
>> Yeah, different ballgame entirely. So we're looking for our partners Pellera's a great example to really take all of the adoption and consumption efforts and making sure our customers can realize the value of what VCF 9.0 can deliver. And so we're looking for our partners to take on all of our services. We're not competing with partners anymore. And I think Pierre and now Pellera is a great example of just how far we've come and would love to hear from Pierre on really what that change has looked like over the last year.>> And what's your scope? Give me an example of the scope of what the role is, what you do.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Oh, God. Okay. So I lead what we call internally the VMware SWAT team.
Tara Fine
>> All right, very cool name.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Very much on purpose because when Broadcom bought VMware, we went... I can't say this in, oh God->> You can say it, we're live.
Pierre Cayouette
>> And we said, okay, this is going to be interesting. A little chaotic probably. We've been an early adopter of VCF even before it was called VCF and just the components. So to your point, John, it was very different back then. And very few partners had all of the expertise. We tended to have specialties in one or another. So the role of the SWAT team was basically to very quickly... So that not all the reps have to do this, but we do this. It's a virtual team across our practices, Cloud, security, DI, DW, and the team was really able to go in the field quickly and with Broadcom understanding the pace of the changes. So we're not going to dwell on the first 12 months. It's been a wild ride, but you're talking about doubling down. That was our way of doubling down was that give it that focus. It was like, "Okay, things are going to change really, really fast. We need to structure ourselves differently as a partner to be able to absorb the bumps and to make it through that period." As Hawk said this in our partner's session, I gave you hell for 12, 18 months. Now for those who made it through, they are so much more opportunities, but the partner profile's different.
Rebecca Knight
>> But I'm interested to hear about those growing pains too because they are necessary and part of the journey to realizing all the value and benefits of VCF 9.0.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Yes. So I'll say, I'll put ourselves on the lucky side because we had a lot of the elements already. We just turned the volume up to 11 in order to catch up with Broadcom. It's not been like this for all partners. So you'd have other partners here that didn't make the cut that are not finding this a fun ride, but it's all right. It was predictable.
Rebecca Knight
>> So the bar is higher now, would you say?
Pierre Cayouette
>> The bar is much higher. The bar is much higher.>> What is the bar? Talk us through it because I know that there are new partners emerging. It's probably an opportunity for VMware. I would say given what we're seeing in our research side is that the AI's there, so I can see someone who has a relationship with a large enterprise, whether it's through procuring hardware or services saying, "Oh, hey, since I have a relationship, I want some private... I'm going to go all in and have a transformational project," because AI's hot and they're buying GPUs and compute storage, networking. Everyone's putting on-premise AI centers together, AI factories.
Pierre Cayouette
>> And now it's included in VCF 9.0. Isn't that fantastic?>> So what a great product to hand to a partner. That's pretty much, I won't say pretty much turnkey, but it's a lot easier to deploy if you're already in the wheelhouse of servicing. SI-like or system integration-
Pierre Cayouette
>> Absolutely.... >> which is a great delivery mechanism. So take us through this. I mean, what is the bar? Certification, is it-
Pierre Cayouette
>> Okay. So Tara mentioned it's a combination of volume of business, so the good old way of doing things. So it's clear for us that's how we receive it from Broadcom that they like fewer, bigger partners. That's just one thing. The most important thing for them is capabilities. How are we investing? What did we do in the last 12 months? We went through recertification, augmenting the number of VCF folks that we have on staff in a planned matter. We got our first VCF knight, which is very important for them. And being knighted is a big thing in Broadcom. It's not a small thing. So that makes the bar much higher. The lower tiers don't even exist anymore. And in return, they're asking us to double down too.
Tara Fine
>> But one of the areas I would just add is around alignment with our field teams and making sure that our partners can tell the same story that we would tell internally. I think also in terms of the size of the partners, something that's evolved over the last year is really focusing on the capability of the partners. And the way that we've evolved the points program is around certifications, capabilities, and services. And so we do have a subset of partners that may not be the size of Pellera but are actually incredibly important in what we're doing and what we're trying to accomplish with our customers.>> Tara, explain the points system. Because in all good channel, indirect relationships, indirect sales or service, which that is, the customer has to benefit. Obviously they're the customer, at the end customer is everything. So the incentives have always been a big part of the channel. You guys have a new system. I think I heard the points I've heard, I never got the whole briefing, but what is the incentive that you guys give the partners to do their best and how does that work? Explain.
Tara Fine
>> Yeah. So over this last year we've evolved to this point system that really does recognize and reward partners for their capabilities, their certifications, the volume of business, and really driving toward the professional services side. So having those three elements and making that very profitable for our partners is what we believe is critical to getting them to double down and really for our partners to realize the value of our platform is getting those partners to be able to architect and deliver and deploy everything that we need them to go do as if they were representing->> So your vision is to optimize for the professional services side.
Tara Fine
>> Exactly. >> A lot of folks will do that with either soft dollars market development funds, fund staff. What's your vision on how you see that kind of, it's not just pure cash incentive, obviously it's more like how do you align the resources? Because we're predicting that VCF 9.0 will be focusing on product improvements because that's their , it's a product game at this point. So I'm sure it's going to translate down to more SEs, more developers. What's the vision on the-
Tara Fine
>> I think the biggest incentive for our partners around that whole area is that they get to go deliver the professional services. That's all their business now. So we're not competing. Historically we would've competed for that business and it really is all about the services for our partners and that opportunity.>> I'd say discounting off the license would be a great incentive.
Tara Fine
>> Well, we have that as well.>> Oh, you do? Okay.
Tara Fine
>> Yeah. And so the discounting really depends on all of those different elements. We talked about->> The deliverables, the number of customer size. So you have a kind of map for this.
Tara Fine
>> Exactly. We have three different partner->> Tiers?...
Tara Fine
>> segmentations that we've done, Pinnacle, Premier and select. So Pierre was referring to the registered tier. We've kind of moved away from that and really doubling down on the partners that are along.>> So if someone's watching and says, "I want to be a partner, because I think this private Cloud thing is going to be working, because AI is happening. Private AI is a nice feature..." Chris Wolf laid it out beautifully yesterday and then you got Tanzu hanging out here for app dev and the intelligence platform to integrate in. So this could pop beautifully for a service provider or a partner. What's the pitch and what do they need to be? How tall do they need to be to ride the roller coaster?
Pierre Cayouette
>> Okay. We need to become architects and agents of change. It's not about products anymore, it's about the platform. That is great, but it's a lot more difficult. It's a longer sales cycle Once you do it though, stickiness and renewals is really easy and it's really transforming. You didn't ask the question, Pellera means moving forward. So that's exactly fits into what our mission is to empower the customers. VCF has been in the making for 20 years. What Broadcom is doing is accelerating and delivering on the promise finally.
Rebecca Knight
>> So Pierre, how do you do that? Because as you said, it's a real mindset shift from product to a more platform orientation. You have to help not only your customers but also your own internal teams make that adjustment. Absolutely. So this is where the SWAT team makes sense because we can go draw, for example, in our Cloud practice where we've helped customer move to a Cloud mode, albeit in the public Cloud, it's the same challenges when now you have a platform and you have to do it on-prem. I say educate, elevate, need to elevate the discussion. We've never had so many C-level discussions because it's a platform discussion, it's not a product discussion. And then eliminate silos. Hawk was on stage last year saying we need to eliminate them. The number one hurdle for customer is this. They need to see themselves as a provider to the business. When they go through the public Cloud, they can adopt it and they come back and they want to do the best of breed and that's the power of the VCF 9.0 platform.>> Platform. And the developers are coming back on-prem too because their data's there. A lot of their training-
Pierre Cayouette
>> Developers want to do it quickly and VCF 9.0 gives them the tool and it's integrated more than ever but we need to rise up from->> From, so I've been saying on our CUBE Pod every week that there's a new kind of channel partner coming out. There's the modern ecosystem developing and it's more of an integrator system integrator, I don't want to say GSI, maybe I want to say GSI-like, but not as big as an Accenture or Deloitte, focused. What's your problem? We've been serving customers all day long, helping you buy and procure hardware to professional services to what's your problem now? Opportunity loading Cloud, we can help you, come in there. So to me seems to be the game. That's not trivial from a skillset standpoint. You got to have the chops.
Pierre Cayouette
>> It is not and we need to invest. And one of the things that Broadcom's doing, you were asking about, "Well what's the money opportunity?" Broadcom, I've been very vocal in divesting from professional service that was always a co-op petition game with ->> little money out of it. Hawk's like, that's mouse nuts compared to what they could do if they just get to a subscription, which is the genius move by the way. We've been telling everyone how good that was.
Pierre Cayouette
>> And so that puts service dollars out there and incents us to go grab the dollars. That's the incentive in the business case to double down even more.>> Yeah, I think that is the killer point because the professional service is high, cheap gross profit opportunities for partners.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Totally.>> VMware laying that down, that's like fertilizer for the channel. I mean you can't get any better than just saying, "Hey, take the cash."
Tara Fine
>> That's what they've been asking for for as long as I've been at VMware, nine years, that's what they've wanted. And really for the first time we're doing it. We're really doing it.>> And you guys benefit because you get distribution directly to the customers. The frontline people are serving with the customer. They handle all the needs. First party right there. Primary data on the field. You're the plumbing.
Tara Fine
>> We can drive this better than our .>> Chris says, Chris who runs VCF, "We're just the plumbing to enable things to happen great on top of it."
Pierre Cayouette
>> Yeah.
Tara Fine
>> Absolutely.>> That's what's happening. So if you're a partner, this is a money-making opportunity, it's a client-serving opportunity. What's the minimum requirement? I guess back to my original question, is there a certain, have you guys kind of framed it? Is it a staffing kind of minimum requirement?
Pierre Cayouette
>> Oh boy.>> Is it, "Can I be small and get in the game and then get a few wins," or-
Tara Fine
>> Yeah.... >> I mean VCF 9.0 is not small. It's kind of beefy in terms of capabilities. You got everything in there.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Yes. But to Tara's point, there is a new breed of partners that are starting to come out which are very, very surface-centric, versus the legacy ones just doing the transaction. We do both. So I think we're in a good spot, but you need a core.>> So there's plenty of beachhead .
Pierre Cayouette
>> It's not an easy question to answer because->> So there's a lot of diversity in terms you can be small to large. So it's a large transformation project. Obviously you got to have the staff and capabilities. But if I'm mid-size market to hire-
Tara Fine
>> We have lots of smaller partners, medium partners, larger partners. Really the whole gamut, it is about the capability that they can deliver. It might not be for a thousand different customers, it might be for 20.>> Okay. So you have a program out there, the Advantage Program.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Yeah.
Tara Fine
>> Correct.>> Is there anything else that we should know that we could get out there and share?
Tara Fine
>> Yeah, I think as part of the Advantage Program, we have free enablement. So that is something that was a game changer for us. We used to charge for partners to get certified and enabled and that is free. We want our partners to be educated and be able to deliver this to our customers. So that's the other element I think is really important. And I can't stress enough the professional services and really how we're going to continue to evolve our program to drive that for our partners to take advantage of.>> And you also got to manage that they're actually doing. That's where the certification I think probably comes in.
Tara Fine
>> Exactly. >> So that's really the key laddering up, the more certified you are, that's always been kind of a benchmark for qualifying someone.
Tara Fine
>> Exactly. Yeah.
Pierre Cayouette
>> And the point system enable that more than ever.>> Yeah. Great. I'd like to learn more about this point system. It's like fantasy football.
Rebecca Knight
>> I want to learn more about being knighted-
Pierre Cayouette
>> I can see that....
Rebecca Knight
>> that sounds cool, too.
Pierre Cayouette
>> You could see it like that.>> Who's got the best points?
Tara Fine
>> It's a verb now. >> I want to see who's got the best points in the VMware ecosystem-
Tara Fine
>> Game .... >> we'll get a little leaderboard. She's like, "No way. It's never going to happen."
Rebecca Knight
>> Pierre and Tara, thank you both so much for coming on theCUBE, a fun conversation.
Tara Fine
>> Thank you for having us.
Pierre Cayouette
>> Thanks for having us.
Rebecca Knight
>> I'm Rebecca Knight for John Furrier. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage of VMware Explorer. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in enterprise tech news and analysis.
Rebecca Knight