VCD RoundTable

Yves Sandfort: 00:00

Hello, and welcome. We are coming together to record another episode of the VCD round table. It's going to be episode 23. And as you can currently watch on social media, a lot is going on around the VMware Cloud Service Provider programs. We are going to give you an update on that in just a second, but let's do a quick round of introduction.

Yves Sandfort: 00:21

With me, today in Palo Alto is

Sascha Schwunk: 00:24

Sascha. Hi.

Yves Sandfort: 00:27

And who else do we have in Austria?

Matthias Eisner: 00:29

Oh, yeah. Austria Vienna. It's Matthias.

Tobias Paschek: 00:32

And Austria near Vienna.

Yves Sandfort: 00:36

Good. So as we have all seen, the announcement came out or the emails went out to the service providers who is going to be basically becoming a premier service provider. The Pinnacle providers knew their role already for a little bit longer, so they did not get really any news. But the premier providers actually got their news. We also became news that we are actually going to be a premier provider, which is going to allow us, to host the white label program, which we are very enthusiastic about, and we are going to talk to that, about that a bit later.

Yves Sandfort: 01:10

But one of the things and then I'm going to open up a bit of the discussion on. One of the things, which we need to cover is so from a Broadcom perspective, there are now going to be more or less 2 official partner levels, but in reality, there are going to be 3. So the top tier partner is going to be the pinnacle partner. They get, all the laugh, from Broadcom. Let's call it that way.

Yves Sandfort: 01:32

If you go through the FAQ, there is a long list of things they get. But also on the other side, when I spoke to some of them, there is a long list of duties they also got. So for those who are actually currently in the premier level and actually think about, hey. I wanna become a Pinnacle partner. Think twice about that once they explain to you what are all the rules behind that.

Yves Sandfort: 01:51

You might wanna stick in the premier level, actually. There are also still going to some changes going on as we learned this morning about, how about you deal with bring your own licenses and customer commit licenses. We are still investigating into that. What's really behind that and trying to understand that before we actually cover that part. So that's pinnacle.

Yves Sandfort: 02:11

Then we have the premier level, which is going to be a maximum from what we heard behind closed doors, around 400 partners globally. So 100 in the top tier, 400 in the tier maximum, depending on how many people are going to commit because the minimum commit is going to stick at 3,500 course. What we also see currently in the market is an interesting move is, there obviously seems to be a lot of service providers who actually overcommitted. So they actually don't know how to get 3,500 course and are now desperately running around and actually trying to find others who basically become their helper to actually get above the line. So everybody who is actually looking out there is, like, question very well is, like, what is the motivation behind someone else offering you a cheap white label?

Yves Sandfort: 02:56

Because you might be helping a competitor to get in a better role than yourself. There is going to be a 3rd level, and that comes back to the term white label, which I just used. There is going to be a 3rd level of, VMware Cloud providers in the future. Those are the ones who are not going to become premier and pinnacle partners. They will still need to be registered in the Broadcom systems.

Yves Sandfort: 03:19

There is a bit of a discussion going on how this is going to happen, whether this is going to be done by the white label host, by Broadcom directly, however that's going to happen. These providers will no longer actually purchase through aggregators. They are going to not only purchase, but going to be completely serviced by the white label provider. So whether it comes to support, education, business development, all of these things need to be done by the white label host. But let's discuss about the premier, level for a moment.

Yves Sandfort: 03:49

So as we have all seen, there's a lot of discussion. Some people were surprised that they were invited. Some people were surprised that they did not get invited. So, any specific stories anyone wants to share where where they had a surprise with 1 of the support, I just they actually support.

Sascha Schwunk: 04:04

You also what we heard from providers in the last days, so we had a lot of meetings with service providers. And the interesting part is we heard from a few providers, they only said on the AFI, they said, yeah, we want to commit to 2,000,2500 course, and they were invited. And other ones through that, they have committed to 5,000 course and what yeah. Was not invited, in the letter 2 days ago, and that is very interesting. And, so that also looks like, that Broadcom have reviewed the complete list and take a look and yeah.

Sascha Schwunk: 04:46

Created the list on depending on what is the future, maybe on the service provider stuff. What's the VMware on the future for this different service providers? And maybe they have to, yeah, create a list because of the 400 they only have in

Yves Sandfort: 05:01

the list. But, let me let me jump in here real quick because, I was the one who filled out our RFI. The RFI did not ask for a dedicated points number. So you needed to actually say whether you are going to commit to 3,500 or not. So, I'm not sure what exactly everybody actually, crossed in.

Yves Sandfort: 05:21

There was some, confusion with our submission as well. So might be a different story. But in the end, all the feedback we got is, like, you need to commit to 3,500 course whether you have them or not. So, and I had a discussion yesterday with 1 service provider who asked me very directly. It's like so I now got the invite.

Yves Sandfort: 05:42

There is another form in there. If I fill out that form, does that mean I'm finally committing to it? And I actually warned him where I said it's like, yes. According to what I understand how Broadcom sees the law, if you fill out any of their forms Documented. Their Google forms, they see that as a binding contract.

Yves Sandfort: 06:01

That's somewhere in the terms and conditions of their partner contracts that whatever form you fill out is actually becoming a binding contract. So, think about that before you fill out that new form which you got because it might be that that from Broadcom is already you commit to actually pay for 3,500 course. So that's going to be interesting. Any other opinions? Matthias, Tobias?

Tobias Paschek: 06:23

Being honest, I don't have one because I haven't heard any funny stories around that. I I

Matthias Eisner: 06:28

was busier taking care of explaining our own white label program to a service provider being part of the tier 3. Yeah. And that's that's very interesting.

Tobias Paschek: 06:41

Same same same from my side. So also he from my side, I only get more questions around our byte labeling. I have heard from some service provider. They said, yeah, we are more or less below the we got an invite, but we would not like to commit for this 2,500.

Yves Sandfort: 06:59

Which was a discussion we had yesterday with a lateral provider even in Germany who said it's like, yeah. We are we are shy of 3,400, actually. So they are very near even to the list. And, even they came back and said it's like, yes. But we might be better off in actually something else.

Yves Sandfort: 07:16

So there is a lot of people who rethink this because the being the premier partner actually comes with a lot of duties as well is, you know, you know, you know need to actually file your support request as level 3, 4. Plus something which is hidden in the documents, which over read is also that very shortly after you actually become part of the program, you will need to fulfill the certification requirements, which are not yet listed. But according to what we heard in the past from CA Symantec partners is Broadcom is not taking certifications very easy. So expect that you will also have to certify people when you look at other Broadcom partner programs. I'm not saying that this is going to be the part for, the VMware part.

Yves Sandfort: 08:01

But when you look at other Broadcom partner programs, in the software space, all of them have, for example, also a support certification. That support certification by itself has 4 different levels and is actually per product category. So this might be that for service providers also, there is coming a lot of, additional certification requirements, which is also one of the reasons why people those people who really read all the documentation actually revised that and actually said it's like, oh, we are not necessarily sure if we want to go down that route.

Sascha Schwunk: 08:32

Yeah. And one one more interesting point what we get from the service providers was, especially on that, who are directly on the limits 3,500, says that with a new model of licensing with call based licenses. So they are normally planned to, yeah, go down with the count of, course, go to a higher course, so higher performance CPUs and, remove all of the 8 core CPUs they're currently using. And with this, if they are finished, especially I had a call with a service provider this morning, and they told me, hey. I can reduce it for around about 30, 40%.

Sascha Schwunk: 09:16

And then if you have a commitment with 3,500 on the 36 months, that will not work. And, also, if you go to the tier 2 partner, so to the premier partner stuff, you have some problem. You cannot say, hey. I only commit on 2,000 and do an over usage for the next 6 months for this, other 1,500 course.

Matthias Eisner: 09:39

Mhmm. Yeah. That that's interesting because I think many many service providers are used to the fact that with VMware, a commit will say, like, yeah. Alright. We agree on something.

Matthias Eisner: 09:51

And then in another 6 months, we renegotiate and and stuff like this. My personal feeling tells me, like, with Broadcom, if you commit for 36 months, a commit is a commit. That's end end of the story.

Tobias Paschek: 10:07

And and to add here something, we are talking about 36 months, which is also most important. So you cannot say, hey. Okay. I tried to 1 year, and then let's see what's what's going on. Yeah.

Tobias Paschek: 10:19

You commit to 36 months.

Matthias Eisner: 10:21

Say 3 years, that sounds less.

Yves Sandfort: 10:25

Which is important. I actually we I actually warned 1, one partner who actually was offering white label that he has had a big mistake in his calculation yesterday. I told him it's like, I don't want to take it I hope you don't take it personally, but, sorry, but you actually calculated the the amount, which is actually for 1 year and said it's for 3 years. Is like, you better actually check that because, otherwise, your service is going to be out of service very soon. So I think there is a lot of these things going on, and I think it's it's important.

Yves Sandfort: 10:57

And maybe we quickly describe, when you when you look at white label. And by the way, we have a lot of, live viewers as well. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments or, question section depending on which livestream you are on, and, we are happy to actually actually answer them.

Yves Sandfort: 11:13

So, so white label in general. So how does this work? So in

Yves Sandfort: 11:14

general, what's going to happen is the white label host, because I don't know yet what the final name for that one is going to be. So the white because I don't know yet what the final name for that one is going to be. So the white label host, let's say, in that example, Com division as white label host is going to, offer the service to a smaller service provider. Let's call them WindowMaker, which is one of our typical, of our typical demo names. So if WindowMaker wants to actually, be part of our white white label program, this means towards Broadcom, we take full financial and legal liability over for that service provider.

Yves Sandfort: 11:48

So not only do we actually, confirm to Broadcom that even if they stop paying, that we are going to continue to pay for the complete 36 months for them. We are also liable for any kind of wrong reporting in an audit process or something else by that specific service provider. So that is completely our problem, and that is much more than the aggregators or now CCMs actually ever had. And so this is also something where I always suggest to anyone who actually looks into finding a white label partner is really dig deep into how well do they understand all the risks and everything else. Because what's worst case going to happen is after 12 months or something else, they stop go they go out of service, but you are still bound in a contract because depending on which legislation they are in, you might not, based on that, easily get out of it and can switch.

Yves Sandfort: 12:39

So there are tons of things you should you should think of. We started making a video, the other day, which you will find on different social medias with, for example, the 3 top questions you should ask, when you are looking into a white label provider. And we will give you more hints. That is not only about this is not so much about whether you go and do that with us. We are more than happy to take you on, but also to guide anyone who wants to actually go somewhere else, to give you some guidance on what you should look for.

Yves Sandfort: 13:06

Because we have been working on this since end of November. And some people just all of a sudden figure out, hey. We don't have enough course. Let's do white label. We have only 3 weeks left.

Yves Sandfort: 13:18

So and until then, you need to have everything sorted. So be very, very careful out there.

Matthias Eisner: 13:24

Furthermore, I think the the issue or the issue, the the fact around reporting customer data is another very interesting part of the white label because, which service provider loves or would like to share customer data with a a CSP working in the same field?

Yves Sandfort: 13:46

Obviously, when you talk to some of them a lot, but they didn't fully understand what this all of this means. I think it's it's those are things which you just need to, cover. But I think the the end customer data is not only the only only scenario. It's when you think about it because, let's take, again, take our scenario with WindowMaker. If I take WindowMaker as a as a service provider, they have a customer, let's call them Frame King for the fun of it because that way we are staying in our terms.

Yves Sandfort: 14:17

Frame King as an end customer has an issue in their Windows VM. So what's now going to happen is that frame king files a ticket with WindowMaker. WindowMaker can't solve the ticket because it's somewhere in the VMware tools or something else. WindowMaker files the ticket with CommDivision because CommDivision is their upstream provider. CommDivision can't solve it because it's inside the VMware tools.

Yves Sandfort: 14:37

We can't actually fix them. So we have to file a ticket with, Broadcom. And now it's getting to a very interesting point because at this stage, if this something like this happens, we now need to actually get a direct relationship in a support call between between VMware by Broadcom, Com division as the white label host, and the end customer. We don't even yet know if we are even allowed to let the window maker in between cast service provider actually into that call. And when we consider all of this, this is something you really need to think twice about if this is something you are happy and confident with that that whoever is your white label provider, that they are not actually all of a sudden because we all have been on such support calls if we are long enough in the industry where people 2 people immediately align with each other and say, it's the 3rd party's fault who is not on the call.

Yves Sandfort: 15:30

And so those are things which are very, very important to consider, when we talk about white label. It's not only about, the reasons for it and the customer data support can be a a thing, but also architecture and education, I think, in the end is like, how are you going to get this? Because, there are a lot of classes already discontinued. Will there be classes in the future? Because what we know, Premier and Pinnacle partners, will get education at least to a certain degree completely for free.

Yves Sandfort: 16:00

So the old training center market is also going to be interesting because I'm not expecting that Broadcom is going to pay the training centers for delivery.

Yves Sandfort: 16:11

Yeah. They're

Matthias Eisner: 16:13

all they're already, re reestablished or refurbishing the the, the embedded learning platform.

Sascha Schwunk: 16:20

And the yeah. And so we have a lot more points. What happens with support cases? In support cases, where are the priorities in support cases when you open a support case within your upstream service provider, white label service provider, who is a competitor of you maybe? So what priority do you really get?

Tobias Paschek: 16:43

Got it. Yep.

Yves Sandfort: 16:45

And how

Yves Sandfort: 16:45

do you build deal, for example, in scenarios where you both participate in the same RFP? So when you're basically when there is a is a public customer or something like that and you're both competing, it's like, they will have far more details about you than you have about them, and that is actually giving them quite a bit of an advantage. So, also, so there are a lot of things you need to think about. But I think overall, it makes sense when you and let's take out of the equation for a moment on who is your white label host. I think in the beginning when I thought about this program when Broadcom came out with this, this is really this is really a drawback for the service providers in the end because you're kicking so many out.

Yves Sandfort: 17:30

But the question is when you think about it is also what Broadcom now creates is you have a top 100 list, which is and and as they stated already on on several social media, it's like just getting above 7,000 course is not getting you automatically into Pinnacle because there is a lot of there is pros and cons of being in Pinnacle. There is not only the core account which is relevant, but also what type of services do you deliver and all these things. So just taking one group, which is really technically qualified and where they look deeper into what are they doing and taking them close to you as a vendor makes sense. Creating a secondary group, which is basically building the intermediary, which is basically on one end, they can deliver more or less similar services than the pinnacle ones, so you get broad from that perspective. But still, there will be a lot of requirements for them from a certification perspective, from business development perspective, and everything else because you cannot actually completely successfully run that for 4,000 service providers.

Yves Sandfort: 18:31

That's not cost effective. And then for the remaining service providers, there is still a program because initially, we thought there is nothing going to happen for them. And there were a lot of discussions, we had and some others had, so to actually make this program happen. Because in the end, as much as everybody now says this is a bad thing, this can help because, we have more time and we have more, local and industry specific knowledge where we can help really grow these businesses. And therefore, initially, I also said it's like having only every 3 years a change in who is actually more or less I mean, you can always from premier to pinnacle.

Yves Sandfort: 19:10

That's a pathway which is open, and pinnacle to premier is open. But for everything else, there is a 3 year period. So in theory, we have 3 years to develop all our white label service providers, and we said that to several of them. It's like, if after 3 years, you're actually above the 3,500 course, and we can more or less release you into the next higher level, That's completely fine with us, and that is completely something we would actually be proud if out out of the program at the end, we could say after 3 years, hey. Here Leo Dear Broadcom here is 50 providers who basically developed that well, but they should actually become premier providers.

Yves Sandfort: 19:47

And that is also a question you should ask your white label host if they are happy if you leave the program after 3 years. Yeah.

Matthias Eisner: 19:54

And I think I think for us as as white label host, it's also very important to create a very strong relationship with our with our CSPs to develop their infrastructures, to streamline their infrastructures, to move them towards VCF, to have a more standardized approach to everything. Because having a standardized infrastructure improves stability. Improved stability equals happy customers because less incidents and all the customers are happy if you have a predictable performance, a predictable, stability of the whole infrastructure. And then you start creating your new product development cycles based on the new infrastructure, like introduce new features like we did in the past with many, like container as a service, Kubernetes, which is a ready to run product out of our offering. And for the future, we have others planned.

Matthias Eisner: 20:47

So that's also a a strong bond to move together to create even more interesting features and align with CSPs to ramp up the consumption.

Tobias Paschek: 21:00

I put more or less a little bit rephrase your your sentence with you, because I would say these are our roots, because this is what we have done since ages to create the service provider, to help a CSP to ramp up his environment, and then leave him in in the nature, leave him free,

Yves Sandfort: 21:23

leave him

Tobias Paschek: 21:23

fly. Do what that is what we have done in the past, for now. We get the ability to, offering also the licensing. Yeah. It's kind of I think,

Matthias Eisner: 21:39

there are a few out there starting like, oh, let's do white label to earn more money with that. Our approach is more like, yeah, let's do white label to keep our CSP partners in the market. In the market. Together. I think that's a a different approach to program.

Yves Sandfort: 21:57

And I think it's like, as I said before, be careful when you choose someone who actually just, let's say, uses you to get himself over 3,400 points. You could also turn it around. Why don't we change the model then and actually you come to me and actually I get over the 3,500 points. Because that is what's happening out there at the moment a lot is there are a lot of people who just actually come out and actually try to yeah. I wouldn't wanna use the term misuse, but they are actually try to use other service providers just to actually get themselves off the hump.

Yves Sandfort: 22:26

And, I think that is something where that actually tells you from the beginning of that business relationship what your role is going to be in that whole game. And you should be very, very thoughtful when you do this because as we said in the past already, is you're going to be bound for 3 years. You are going to be in that ship for 3 years. There is nothing where after 1 year, you could come around and say it's like, yep. Did the wrong one.

Yves Sandfort: 22:49

I wanna actually now go with Rackspace, or I wanna go now down now with whoever else is actually going to offer something. I'm not saying that Rackspace is offering something. I'm not even sure. That was just an example which everybody knows. But that's exactly the point.

Yves Sandfort: 23:03

It's like, you are going to be bound for 3 years as long as that white label host is not going to go out of service. So that that is something you are this is not a decision which you should just base on the fact whether someone is going to be, 50¢ cheaper per core or something else. This could be something you are going to regret for many years because you can't change it anymore.

Matthias Eisner: 23:27

You you know the German phrase we use, who buys cheap buys double? Yeah.

Yves Sandfort: 23:32

But the point is here, you can only buy double after 3 years.

Tobias Paschek: 23:37

Yep.

Matthias Eisner: 23:40

So that's actually one of the few issues you can't solve even with throwing money at it.

Yves Sandfort: 23:47

But I'm also I'm also going to be surprised if after, let's say, 6, 12 months as we will see some, white label host trying to desperately find someone else who takes over the contract, because they wanna get out of it, because they all of a sudden figure out how how much complexity and everything else is in there. As said, it's like, we have been working on this since November, and I'm not sure how many I I I don't even wanna look at the, at our internal time tracking project of how many hundreds of hours were actually built on top of this, to actually make this work and really try to think everything through for our service provider so that we are really sure and secure that we can actually offer something which is also there, not only immediately, but also is going to survive for 3 years and really provide additional value out of it.

Sascha Schwunk: 24:35

But, yeah, maybe we can say a few sentences, why we are doing white label.

Yves Sandfort: 24:41

Yeah. So, why we are doing white label is very simple. As we said already, and this the reason why we did this podcast is one of our primary businesses in Cognivision, as much as people from the outside see us as an more like an enterprise core professional services company, what many people don't know is the majority of our business is in the service provider business. That is by far the biggest part of industries we are dealing with. And even when we look at enterprise core and commercial business, in those areas, the majority of things we are doing is together with other partners.

Yves Sandfort: 25:15

So we don't have that many direct customers anyway in the end. So we are looking, forward from that perspective. So as service providers are our main business, we didn't even think about white label in the beginning. We thought about it because some service providers came to us and said, it's like, look, when Broadcom comes in, we are not sure if we are going to survive this. And so this is why we started up that discussion very early.

Yves Sandfort: 25:38

And the main reason why we do this is, and I'm bloody honest with that, and I said this on several webinars, is in the end, we want to sell you professional services. Our business in this is not about because we wanna sell you a course, which is also the reason why we actually for those service providers who already signed up with us, actually, why we do core optimization workshops with them. We help them to reduce the amount of course they are going to need. We are going to help them how to build the correct commitment numbers because in the end, that's not our business. Our business is to help people actually get the best out of their infrastructure to architect a cloud, which is really sustainable, where they can actually build a platform, which they can make money on.

Yves Sandfort: 26:19

And this is in the end what we wanna sell our service providers. In the end, we wanna sell them services, our services, But it's also it's a completely optional scenario. As we do this with the service packs as part of our white label program, it's like, you are not forced to buy our service packs and our health checks or our training offerings or anything else. You can. And you will get a certain level of discounts or there are other advantages if you're in our white label program.

Yves Sandfort: 26:41

But white label program. But other than that, that is our main reason why we do this. The main reason is not to sell you a course. The main reason is not to build a, a, a whatsoever sized business around, being a white label reseller. Our main business is providing professional services for service providers.

Yves Sandfort: 26:59

And I think that is an honest, a very honest answer on the question on why we do this. We are not doing this just because for charitable reasons. If anyone actually out there runs around there and I saw someone who said it's like, we built a non gun nonprofit organization to run this. Right? I was like, sounds like a, Yeah.

Yves Sandfort: 27:19

I'm not saying, what that sounds like. But nevertheless so that's the reason why we do this. And I'm going to make videos on on a few of these topics in the next few days on social media as well. It's like explaining exactly why we do this, What is our reasoning behind that? And the good part with this program, and this is why I actually like this program.

Yves Sandfort: 27:37

Sometimes, one of our consulting agencies who actually consults us with business development said it's like, you cannot explain customers how you come up with pricing. I say, why not? And this is exactly the point. Everybody knows that we are going to pay 30. We get a 38% discount from Broadcom.

Yves Sandfort: 27:53

Period. That's it. And I made this very clear in every webinar. If we would get a volume discount from Broadcom, we are going to continue to distribute that down to the on on our channel. So if Broadcom, for whatever reason, actually decides to give us 40 or 42%, your percentage is going to change as well.

Yves Sandfort: 28:13

And, we are big fans of happy having an open book. Where's the problem? Is and and this is something which I think is, is very important and which which is unique to this white label program because first Broadcom com release what is what the what the hosts are going to pay and then set is like and by the way, you can offer the services to someone else. And so it's also easier to compare. In the end, you will not compare only on the pricing.

Yves Sandfort: 28:38

You will need to compare on, is this a partner which is sustainable for me for 3 years? And, Toby, you wanted to say something.

Tobias Paschek: 28:45

And and and the adults as as your white living partner can provide you.

Matthias Eisner: 28:51

Yeah. See, there is one guy agreeing with open book. Oh, it's play it's just honesty. Right? But that's something you already said in one of your last videos, Yves, is, it's a plain battlefield from now on.

Matthias Eisner: 29:07

In the past, there were I don't know how many different contracts at least in Europe with discounts here. There are yes, no, maybe. No one knows. And some build a business model out of it, but now it's a play battlefield.

Sascha Schwunk: 29:21

Yeah. And feel free to ask. So if you join us online and, take a look at our session online, feel free to drop us questions here in the chat so we can answer the questions. Yep.

Yves Sandfort: 29:34

So so again, we are going to do, because there was so much demand last week and this week on the webinars on white label, we are going to run another white label session next week. We are currently trying to figure out when exactly we are going to do this because Sascha and I are due to, appear at the CSP MSP summit in Las Vegas and actually talk about the white label program and stuff like that over there. We will find a spot in the, potentially, next couple of hours once we go through the conference schedule, and then we will post that as well so that you can see when you are going to join us. Even if you can't attend that one, it's like reach out to any one of us on social media. Every one of us is happy to actually jump on a 1 on 1 to actually go through this.

Yves Sandfort: 30:16

We have spent so much time with service providers also to go over over the network licensing, about core optimizations, and everything else. And this is really where you get services from us actually before you dive into it. And that is something which you should also see and look at the other ones. It's like, how many of these questions can they answer you? How many of them can explain you already how network licensing is most likely going to work?

Yves Sandfort: 30:39

Because there are still some open loops in it. How many of them actually fully understand all of these? Ask questions. You are going to be bound for 3 years. And this is what I cannot reiterate.

Yves Sandfort: 30:51

We cannot save the world. We will not take on 3,000 whatsoever service providers in our program. So there is enough room for others who do white label. That's absolutely not the point. But the point is it's important.

Yves Sandfort: 31:01

It's like you need to feel safe because you are going to be bound for 3 years. And if your if VMware is one of your key business aspects, it's like there is nothing you can change for 3 years with it.

Tobias Paschek: 31:12

And and maybe something I would like to add, because we haven't mentioned it right now. We are not really a typical CSP as well. So we still are in the game of offering the services. We're offering the the consulting's a guidance here. But I don't think that we will really run our own service provider business in the next couple of years.

Yves Sandfort: 31:37

That is a good point, Toby, because this is something which is important because everybody who got invited into the program and who is going to offer white label services. And I'm I had actually 2 or 3 people on, some of our calls who actually asked me. It's like, why are you doing or why can you do this? And there is one thing which is very important. You can only be invited to be white label hosting partner if you are currently a VCSP, VCPP partner.

Yves Sandfort: 32:06

So whoever is offering you white label services has already in a hosting contract. And so we are very honest and very clear on why we have a hosting contract, and that is very specific. We have a hosting contract because we use that hosting contract for 2 managed service customers. Those are not customers which we won over the years. Those are long term customers from back in the days where CommDivision was not actually running in the enterprise or commercial field or anywhere else.

Yves Sandfort: 32:35

Those are long standing customers which we had, which actually bring up enough consumption. We can easily go over the 3,500 course by ourselves. We don't actually need to run this program for that reasons. But those are the only areas. We can showcase that there is no real growth behind this and that there is no plan behind growing that.

Yves Sandfort: 32:53

So we are really not competing with you in that space. If anyone tells you that they are a white label house and they they have absolutely no interest in becoming a hosting provider, then you should clearly ask them. It's like, why and how are you on the list in the first place? Because you need to have a VCPP contract. They are, again, hiding something.

Yves Sandfort: 33:14

We are completely open book as we have been on all the sessions and everything else. You can ask us whatever you want even in a public webinar. We, in all the 4 webinars where we had hundreds of attendees so far, there was not one question which we didn't answer. And I'm more than happy to actually take any of these discussions completely public. And this is the other thing which I find interesting for all the other competitors.

Yves Sandfort: 33:36

And by the way, it was nice to have you all on our webinars during the time even if you use Gmail addresses and other things. It's like we know for sure that many of you have been there. Fine. Absolutely. But, again, it's like, maybe do the same.

Yves Sandfort: 33:51

Maybe do open webinars. We would love to come and ask a few questions.

Matthias Eisner: 33:57

Oh, I have so many.

Yves Sandfort: 34:00

I know.

Tobias Paschek: 34:01

I still I have so many.

Yves Sandfort: 34:05

And again, so this is, and I said this yesterday to to Sasha in a joke. It's like, I'm more than happy if, like, if there are 3 or 4 white label hosts, I'm more than happy that we do a a big Zoom round. And, actually, all all of our partners could actually come in there. And the 4 or 5 white label partners can be on stage and answer questions. It's like, I'm perfectly fine with that.

Yves Sandfort: 34:25

We can have an open discussion about pricing. We can have an open discussion about SLAs. We can have an open discussion about education, about support, about all of these things, because we have nothing to hide in any of these scenarios. We are we are actually open. We answer all questions.

Yves Sandfort: 34:42

And I think that's very important, especially if you don't know us because you now need to take a decision for your business within the next couple of days. What's going to be a dependency for you for the next 3 years. So, that is why we think this is not the time to actually play any games and hide and seek and stuff like that. This is the time where you need someone who is very, very open, clear, and crisp.

Sascha Schwunk: 35:05

And there will be a few problems for all of the white label providers in the future where we currently have solutions for and the other ones don't know the problem. So because we had it on, yeah, a lot of, sessions with service providers in the last weeks. And, yeah, get asked a few questions about how this and that will work in the future. And so we figured out a lot of problems with this, white label program, and we, yeah, we have solutions for most of them and working on the other solutions, but that's a big challenge for everyone. Yeah.

Sascha Schwunk: 35:43

We have 2 or 3 which we which

Yves Sandfort: 35:44

are really hard ones. We are working on them. We we think we have a solution for them already, but those are going to be interesting. And if you think that the question whether there will be NFRs is the hardest one, it's like, that's an easy one. There are some very, very tough one, which were tough ones, which we unfolded in the last couple of days.

Yves Sandfort: 36:02

As I said, we we think we have a solution, and we are working with some, business units within Broadcom to actually get a solution because this is nothing the, to be honest, the cloud provider BU really cares about. So we need to find solutions with other business units to actually get to a solution for that one, but we will we are very confident that before we actually leave the campus here, in a few days, we are going to have solutions. Good. So I think we

Tobias Paschek: 36:32

have famous last words. I think I think

Matthias Eisner: 36:34

oh, no. I know. I know.

Tobias Paschek: 36:36

No. No. No. No. No.

Matthias Eisner: 36:37

Famous I know. I know.

Tobias Paschek: 36:48

We should already bring in some Outlook to end user computing as an as an hosting product? Because as we know, VMware or Broadcom has laid off EUC. Do we know already something?

Yves Sandfort: 37:08

How how much time do we really have left to cover that part? So let's be let's be bloody honest. So what we know is, at least what we heard, is there will be a solution which is going to cover not only up until end of April, but up until end of summer somewhere. Mid of summer, end of summer. I would don't wanna actually put the date in in final as long as no one posts something about this.

Yves Sandfort: 37:31

But there will be a solution for that part. The more shocking scenario as far as I understood so far, it's still unclear what's going to happen to the vSphere licenses underneath. So it might be that you a horizon solution, but also everything else. We had already talks with the with Shankar, who is the senior VP of that business unit this week. We are just going to have another meeting with the EOC team in a couple of hours.

Yves Sandfort: 38:05

So we are going to try to solve this also for our service provider. So whoever is on our white label program, most likely will easily get access to the horizon pieces as well. And we are going to evaluate if we can actually find solution for other, products as well, in the near future. But that is what we know already. When it comes, to other products, we don't know yet what's going to happen.

Yves Sandfort: 38:30

But stay tuned for the horizon piece. The acquisition is done. We learned a few new things about the acquisition, but we were told to keep silent on them for a few more days. And we will actually honor that, because that's something where we need to be always be a bit careful. But, so it's it's all looking very good from, in general, from, from an EOC perspective when it comes down to this.

Yves Sandfort: 38:55

The, provider side of the house is going to be there are a lot of questions still to be answered. And but I think it's, like, the most important part is there is a solution for the providers up until, somewhere in summer. And by then, hopefully, they have a different program. It's to be honest, it's far more far more on the, not not on the uncertain side, but it's a far more fluid situation than it is with the, generic VCPP, VCSP program. So, really, really stay tuned and actually watch all channels because there basically might be daily changes, and they have a different communication path, than Broadcom had.

Yves Sandfort: 39:37

Okay.

Matthias Eisner: 39:40

But what I know if someone has more questions around all the white label stuff, I think you can be met next week in Vegas at the summit.

Yves Sandfort: 39:52

You can meet us in Vegas, as we, we as we we we will have something special at least for some of you who are going to meet us. We are going to use, some we are going to do something really special in the, Venetian Palazzo. Stay tuned for it. We might give a sneak peek this weekend, to showcase what we are going

Matthias Eisner: 40:12

to do. Sasha, have you booked the table at Xpod?

Yves Sandfort: 40:16

No. That's a different story. Now we will do something really special. We told some people here and yesterday, and the day before, and people said that's a great idea.

Tobias Paschek: 40:24

Where's my invitation?

Yves Sandfort: 40:26

Nowhere because someone needs to play care of the European part. But talking about the European part, so next week, Vegas. So Monday to Thursday is the conference. And then from there, we are heading back, and we are not heading back. We are directly more or less heading with maybe one stop in between to the CloudFest in Rust, which is going to happen, the week after.

Yves Sandfort: 40:49

But not all of us because Matthias is going to join the, VMware Cloud, however roundtable they are called, on the 19th in Brussels?

Matthias Eisner: 40:59

19th in Brussels and on 20th in London, UK.

Yves Sandfort: 41:04

So, if you wanna meet Matthias, you can actually, meet him, in both of these events. If you wanna set us some time aside with him, reach out to him, and he's going to certainly make sure that he has some time set aside for you, and actually can also do a little one on one and and things like that. So there are tons of opportunities to meet us in person at the moment, whether it's Vegas next week, whether it's Cloudfest in Roast, whether it's the VMware Cloud events, in Brussels and London. So there is a ton of opportunity to get in direct contact with us. And if we can't do that, there is Zoom, there is Teams.

Yves Sandfort: 41:39

We will make everything happen to, get all your questions answered in the

Matthias Eisner: 41:43

There is one exception. With Eve, there is everything except Teams.

Yves Sandfort: 41:50

No. I can Teams. I can do I did a 2 hour Teams this morning already. I can do that perfectly fine as long as I don't need to start a presentation.

Matthias Eisner: 41:57

Oh, did did you use Sasha's laptop?

Yves Sandfort: 42:00

No. I used my phone. I bought a Microsoft phone now. It's great. It's silent because it's constantly rebooting.

Tobias Paschek: 42:14

Okay.

Yves Sandfort: 42:16

No. Just joking. Okay. Okay. I think we covered 43 minutes, 42 minutes.

Yves Sandfort: 42:24

That's a good roundup. We are going to do the next recording in 2 weeks, where Sasha and I are going to be on the at the CloudFest in Rust. Maybe we find even a guest speaker there. Well, that would be interesting. Maybe we'll find someone on the on the conference space who can actually join us for that session.

Yves Sandfort: 42:40

And, we haven't yet finally decided for the next topic, but, we will we will give you some hints and information very soon. Other than that, those of you who actually wanna learn more about VCF, you have a little break now, and then you can actually join Tobias and myself on the live stream again. And then we are going to go further through the VCF configuration guides in our new series, VCF Musketeers. We are going to record episode 2 today. We are currently in the afterwards for episode 1, so then the website page and everything else will go online.

Yves Sandfort: 43:15

I mean, with 1 or 2 episodes, there is not much on the web page. But if you're involved in for the future that you will see a register where you can actually click and on the individual links for different components which you need to configure in VCF, and then you will be directly pointed to the videos. And there will be no paywall or nothing like that. You can directly actually access all that content. Again, this is our giving back to the communities.

Yves Sandfort: 43:38

So stay tuned for these things as well as we are going to guide you, through this very, sometimes bumpy journey with Broadcom, but we see we already see the light at the end of it. And it's not just a bright light, which we see. Anyways, see you all, hopefully, in Vegas, CloudFest, Brussels, London, anywhere else, or on this channel, or in an approximately a bit more than an hour together with Toby at the BCF Musketeers. See you, and bye bye. Bye bye.

Matthias Eisner: 44:07

Bye bye.