Driving Business Growth: The PowerStore Partner Advantage

Kena Johnson PowerStore is the fastest-growing storage product in Dell's history. Dell credits PowerStore’s adaptability, intelligence, and continuously modern approach as keys to its success, while also recognizing the monumental role that partners have played. Here today to discuss this further is Shannon Champion from Dell Technologies. Glad to have you, Shannon! Kena Johnson 1. How would you describe PowerStore’s overall impact on the market? Shannon Champion PowerStore is approaching its 4th anniversary. It has gained incredible momentum in the marketplace and, as you said, the channel plays a massive role in its overall success. We’ve shipped over 5 exabytes of capacity, received FIVE industry analysts Product of the Year awards, and attained multiple #1 NPS scores – where customers rank PowerStore #1 in ease of use, innovation, and roadmap confidence {compared to three other leading storage providers}. We are proud of this recognition by customers and analysts, and believe that a big reason for this recognition is that PowerStore has set the bar for continuous innovation. We’ve had an incredible track record of high-impact releases delivering new capabilities – both software-driven as well as hardware-based – to customers at a record pace. This allows PowerStore to be tremendously versatile in solving diverse customer challenges. It has customer adoption across 90% of Fortune 500 sectors. But again, I just want to underscore our partner community's role in PowerStore's success. Thousands of units have been sold through the channel, and customers have benefit from our partner’s trusted expertise and solution capabilities that they bring to the table. This is important because with our Partner-first strategy for storage, more than 99 percent of Dell customers and potential customers are considered partner-first. Kena Johnson 2. Last year was a big year for PowerStore updates! What enhancements were you most excited about? Shannon Champion Yes! Last year was indeed a transformative year for PowerStore, with lots of exciting new software-driven advancements focused on cyber-resiliency and efficiency – two of the hottest trends & customer needs - all delivered at no charge and no disruption via all-inclusive software updates. A few worth highlighting are: • Cyber-Resiliency: We delivered a ton of cyber-resiliency enhancements including secure snapshots, multifactor authentication, and a new third-site witness for our native metro volume feature! • Direct Integration with PowerProtect: We introduced an integration with PowerProtect allowing customers to manage their backups directly within PowerStore and backup their data to APEX Protection Storage in the cloud or on-premise PowerProtect DD targets. • Data-in-Place Upgrades: Finally, we delivered on our continuously modern promise. Managing storage platform upgrades can be a daunting task, often requiring data migrations and downtime. But with PowerStore, we have the ability for customers to perform upgrades to next-generation controllers without rebuying capacity or forklift upgrades so they can modernize hardware and increase performance to support growing workloads, non-disruptively. These updates are examples of our commitment to delivering more security and efficiency, while also providing a storage solution that empowers customers to meet their evolving storage needs. And of course, partners are critical to success which is why we introduced our Partner First Strategy for Storage last year. This is a strategic investment in our partner ecosystem because we know that together, we can move, scale, and innovate faster for our customers. Kena Johnson 3. What should partners look for from PowerStore at this year’s Dell Technologies World? Shannon Champion Partners have a LOT to look forward to at DTW this year! I can’t go into details yet, but we’ve got big news for PowerStore which that will make our partner-first strategy for storage even more compelling for customers AND partners alike. Make sure you stay tuned to get the latest news hot off the press and be the first to talk to your customers about the next evolution of PowerStore. Kena Johnson Shannon, thank you so much for joining here. If you’d like to learn more about PowerStore, visit the website on your screen. For The Channel Company, I’m Kena Johnson.