A former executive with chip maker Advanced Micro Devices will assume the job of taking over the channel operations after Dell completes its $62 billion acquisition of storage vendor EMC.
John Byrne, who has been at Dell for the past year in sales and channel roles after spending more than eight years with AMD, will become the global channel leader of the combined company—which will be called Dell Technologies—after the deal is closed within the next several weeks.
Marius Haas, Dell’s chief commercial officer and president of enterprise solutions, announced the appointment in a post on the company blog, saying that Byrne’s “experience adds to the already strong channel DNA in both Dell and EMC, and I firmly believe we are well-positioned to create the industry’s best channel sales and programs teams.”
Dell officials are hoping that the acquisition of EMC and its federated businesses—including VMware, RSA Security and Pivotal—will accelerate its transformation from a PC maker into an enterprise IT solutions and services provider that can better compete with the likes of IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems.
The deal—the largest in tech history—has received approvals from regulators in the United States and Europe, and EMC shareholders are scheduled to vote July 19 on whether to accept Dell’s bid. The combined company will rely heavily on its channel partners—Haas wrote that the “combined global channel business will exceed 45 percent of total revenue.”
In the same blog, Byrne said Dell and EMC will continue to maintain separate deal registration and partner programs through 2016, moving to a single partner and deal registration program starting Feb. 1, 2017.
“It’s my goal, along with my team, to not only have the industry’s best channel sales team but to build the best partner program based on Simplicity, Predictability, and Profitability,” he wrote in the same blog post.
Byrne is currently global vice president of sales, strategy, planning and channels for Dell. Among the positions he held with AMD was senior vice president and general manager responsible for the vendor’s $3 billion chip and graphics business. He also headed up sales at one point.