For Nutanix, it's all about empowering partners

“We're a great vendor, but I don't want it to be a one-way street. I want to say that you too are a great partner, and that it's going to be a great fruitful partnership where we can work together for a long time and be productive,” says Dave Gwyn, SVP Worldwide Channels and Customer Success at Nutanix.

Nutanix continues to experience remarkable growth in 2025, especially with more organizations making the switch towards them from VMware Broadcom. While the growth of customers in the past six months alone continues to increase, ensuring partners are capable of supporting customers as they migrate over from VMware is imperative.

According to Michael Magura, Vice President, Partner Sales, APJ, the moment customers started getting renewal pricing from VMware, it was beyond stratospheric as some of them just couldn’t offered it. Many also felt that there wasn’t really any option of negation once the prices were unveiled.

“We started to see movement pretty quickly from there. Customers in India were one of the fastest in Asia to make the move. We had some companies in Australia, probably on the smaller side companies, that were moving quickly as well. If you look at it, if there’s like 100 VMware customers, there's always going to be like 50 that are kind of like, not happy with the situation with Broadcom. They’re going to wait and see what happens over a period of time. But there will also be about 30 customers that realize they need to make a move now,” explained Magura.

Magura acknowledges that not all customers will make the shift from VMware Broadcom for several reasons. Apart from long term deal commitments, many VMware customers also have a lot of VMs that would take a long time to migrate. For most customers, going into this scenario can be challenging for them.

However, Magura also believes that many customers are taking note of what their peers are doing. They are observing how some VMware customers have been able to migrate smoothly and avoid increasing costs in the long run. This he believes could eventually lead to more opportunities for Nutanix in the future.

One good example are customers and partners in Japan. Magura said that Japan is home to some of VMware’s largest customers and partners. Most Japanese companies take a long time to make such decisions. However, some of VMware’s largest partners in Japan were also Nutanix’s largest partners with thousands of VMware customers.

Yet, as some of these partners started doing migration programs for customers onto the Nutanix Platform, they soon realized that this is actually not that complicated and started engaging with more customers.

“Customers were happy. You've proven to us this is possible although they were sceptical in the beginning. So, once you see that kind of experience, the partner gets really confident that they can do it. And as the customer is happy, all of a sudden, there are five or ten more customers interested. We saw this sort of deluge coming,” said Magura.

As the VMware Broadcom acquisition comes to about two years now, Magura highlighted that there are now a lot more customers coming to partners and partners are coming to Nutanix to get help in making the switch possible.

Empowering partners to deliver

For Dave Gwyn, SVP Worldwide Channels and Customer Success at Nutanix, partner enablement becomes very important for Nutanix in this situation. With several trainings and certifications released last year, there has been a lot of solid uptakes from partners. Gwyn also highlighted that Nutanix has been investing in its service providers, including in Asia Pacific, as they bring in the fluency Nutanix needs.

Interestingly, Gwyn stated that the key now it's to identify which partners are leaning in and who are truly committed to Nutanix and lead with Nutanix versus those who are just sort of more in a fulfilment scenario. For Nutanix, this is crucial especially with the investments being made that are going to be more focused on customers.

“So, this year we came up with a new tier in our Elevate program. So previously our top tier was called a Champion partner. We added a new tier on top of Champion and call it Premier, which is much harder to get into than Champion. It has much higher gates, and it also pays a great set of incentives and rebates that either only exist for Premier or are higher for our Premier partners than they are for the other levels. And so, we've seen really good uptake on that, and it's really helped in distinguishing our best partners, those who are leaning in and those who are really committed,” explained Gwyn.

With that said, Gwyn believes there are four key pillars that are needed for partners and Nutanix to be successful.

“My belief is that partners need to have all four of these in order to have a fruitful partnership that's truly going to be force-multiplying and effective. The first pillar is profitability. I think all partners are looking for profitability or else there's not much value in the partnership. The second is product. We've got to have a product that fits its market well, that is viewed by analysts as a leader that customers have a need for and there is a large market for. And then the third is long-term commitment. We're committed to our partners from the standpoint of stability in our incentives and our programs so that our partners, when they look at the rebates, they are able to build a strategy around that. The fourth is trust whereby partners can trust the integrity of Nutanix,” explained Gwyn.

For partners that are looking to be part of Nutanix, Gwyn said they are most welcome to join in as there are a lot of partners out there who have been working in that environment for a long time. Also, nobody expected the changes that happened to happen as well, Gwyn said referring to the partner changes announced by Broadcom.

“When changes this drastic happen, they've got to make business decisions. And my advice to them is, come on over. We are committed to those four elements. And so if you're looking for a partnership that brings profitability, a great product, long-term commitment, and trust, then come to Nutanix,” he said.

Gwyn believes it's all about commitment from partners. If they’re truly committed to Nutanix, it will be a great partnership. Just as Nutanix creates great partnerships with its lens, he expects partners to also go out of their way to stand out as a channel partner.

“So, I want to stand up to them and say, we're a great vendor, but I don't want it to be a one-way street. I want to say that you too are a great partner, and that it's going to be a great fruitful partnership where we can work together for a long time and be productive. That would be my advice for partners is, you know, make it a two-way street, come hard, and get committed,” concluded Gwyn.