![]() "But I'm not sure the Nimble Storage play will change our direction, or Lenovo's direction." "We sell relatively little Lenovo," the solution provider said. Lenovo needs a converged infrastructure play because the tier-one vendors like Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Cisco have one, and it is important for second-tier vendors to get a piece of the action, the solution provider said. ![]() "But I don't know that this combination is the right answer." "I see Nimble Storage gain traction in the market," the solution provider told CRN. When compared to what other vendors have, especially Dell, Lenovo is still seen as a me-too server vendor."Īnother Lenovo channel partner, who also preferred to remain anonymous, said the ThinkAgile offering is an interesting play. But we actually sell what customers demand. "We sell Lenovo when customers ask for it. "Lenovo's channel strategy is still focused on a volume play, and not a value play," the solution provider told CRN. One Lenovo partner, who requested anonymity, said the new ThinkAgile offering is probably better for Nimble Storage than it is for Lenovo. It fills that gap, and gives us that end-to-end solution."Ī couple of Lenovo channel partners, for now, feel that the vendor still has a lot of work to do to be a serious player in the data center business. "That's why, for us, this is a huge announcement. ![]() "From an enterprise data center perspective, storage has been our biggest gap," he said. McCrae said that Lenovo is committed to delivering more flash storage solutions, with dedicated Lenovo-branded storage products based on Nimble Storage technology expected to come to market starting in the first half of 2017. "This is a collaborative technology partnership that will lead to further developments." ![]() "What's really unique is the longer-term ramifications of our relationship," he said. ThinkAgile is expected to be only the first of a growing relationship between the two vendors, Leary said. "We don't have any other pre-integrated converged infrastructure relationships," he said. While Nimble Storage has converged infrastructure partnerships with other vendors, they are more along the lines of meet-in-the-channel relationships, Leary told CRN. It will not be sold by Nimble Storage channel partners, said Dan Leary, vice president of corporate development for the storage vendor. The ThinkAgile offering will be pre-integrated by Lenovo in its own facilities and sold by Lenovo's channel partners, McCrae said. The different parts are tied together with Lenovo's XClarity infrastructure management software, he said. The solution includes Lenovo servers, Nimble storage, and Lenovo network technology it got with the IBM x86 server business acquisition, McCrae said. The new relationship with Nimble Storage is starting out with ThinkAgile, Lenovo's new brand for converged infrastructure. However, the Lenovo-EMC relationship ended even before the purchase of EMC by Lenovo arch-rival Dell. That effort expanded with Lenovo's 2014 acquisition of IBM's x86-based server business. Lenovo's march into the data center started with its 2012 strategic agreement with EMC to jointly develop VSPEX reference architectures for converged infrastructure. Now we're offering tier-one, all-flash and hybrid flash storage." "We started with file and block storage, and added software-defined storage. "Lenovo storage is still young and growing," McCrae told CRN. Partnering with San Jose, California-based Nimble Storage will give Lenovo a tier-one storage offering, said Stuart McCrae, director of the Lenovo storage product group. Server vendor Lenovo and flash storage vendor Nimble Storage are partnering on a new converged infrastructure solution that Lenovo hopes will be its first, big step down the road to becoming a data center powerhouse.
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