The Three Pillars of the Partnership - Go-To-Market

Two pillars down - one to go. We've addressed the Engineering and Support pillars in previous posts and for this one, we'll dig into the Go-To-Market pillar and how Cisco differentiates itself. Let's dig in.

Cisco's Go-To-Market

Licensing

First let's talk about transacting Nutanix software through Cisco. Everything found in the Nutanix software portfolio is available to be sold through Cisco. On the surface this isn't that big of a deal, however, it does help ensure a simpler and more streamlined process for customers.

As a quick example: A customer purchases the main Nutanix software suite - NCI (Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure) through Cisco and later wants to expand their use of the Nutanix software portfolio. The customer has experienced the value of the Cisco hardware portfolio along with the Nutanix software and wants to deploy NUS (Nutanix Unified Storage) or maybe start to dip their toes into the AI software NAI (Nutanix Enterprise AI). They can still do this through Cisco.

Not only are all software SKUs found through Cisco, but all the different support levels also. If a customer would like "Mission Critical" support vs. "Production" (mostly a difference of service level agreements (SLAs)) - these are all available, including federal specific support terms.

The following SKUs are available:

• Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI)
  • Includes additional add-on SKUs
• Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
• Nutanix Cloud Platform Bundles (Combination of NCI/NCM)
• Nutanix Unified Storage (NUS)
• Nutanix Data Lense (NDL)
• Nutanix Edge Solutions (NCI-E)
• Nutankx Kubernetes Platform (NKP)
• Nutanix Enterprise AI (NAI)
• Nutanix End User Compute (EUC)

As Nutanix adds new software SKUs that apply to what Cisco supports, Cisco will ensure to add these into their global price list (GPL). Make sure to check the Cisco data sheets and ordering guides to make sure you have the latest list of available SKUs.

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Buying Programs

As mentioned above, making sure that the purchasing process is as painless as possible for customers is nice, but Cisco went a step further offering different buying programs for customers.

Cisco Enterprise Agreements

For customers looking to consume Nutanix licenses at scale - considering a Cisco Enterprise Agreements (EA) is a powerful tool to consider. The key words in the previous sentence are "at scale." There are certain thresholds that need to be met to qualify for an EA - talk to your Cisco teams for the most accurate data, but there are significant advantages to this program.

To help explain these features, lets use the following example: A customer enters into an EA with Cisco for Nutanix licensing. The agreement is for a total of 500 licenses over 5 years consumed at 100 licenses per year. The price is irrelevant - but let's say $100 per license at the time of the agreement.

Price Lock

The price lock feature of an EA allows customers to lock in the price of the software license for the duration of the agreement. Using the example above, a customer consuming the licenses over 5 years has a consistent and predictable cost:

• Year 1: 100 (licenses) x 100 (price) = $10,000
• Year 2: (100 x 100) + year 1 = $20,000
• Year 3: ... $30,000
• Year 4: $40,000
• Year 5: $50,000

Total cost over 5 years $150,000

Pretty self-explanatory right? Well what happens if a customer doesn't do an EA? Industry price changes are an unfortunate reality and I think I can count on zero fingers how many times prices have gone down ... so what does it look like if we assume a 5% price increase every year?

• Year 1: 100 x 100 = $10,000
• Year 2: 200 x 105 (5% increase) = $21,000
• Year 3: ... $33,075
• Year 4: $46,305
• Year 5: $60,775

Total cost over 5 years: $171,155

That's quite a difference ... but the example is a bit misleading as no customer will renew their license subscription on yearly basis. The alternative is no EA and pay everything up front for the full 5 years.

• Year 1: $150,000

I'm no financial wizard but paying $10,000 in year 1 seems like a better option, not to mention that there would definitely be circumstances where a customer would buy 500 licenses but only be able to consume a portion of those for the first few years.

True Forward

When a customer has an awesome solution, it isn't a stretch of the imagination that overconsumption of licenses can happen. That's ok! No customer should be punished for overutilizing a product which is where the True Forward feature comes in. Through the EA - customers can overconsume up to 15% above the agreement and true up at the agreed upon interval.

Let's use the example above where a customer has committed to 500 licenses over 5 years, 100 licenses per year. At the end of year 1, the customer consumed 110 licenses - no big deal. The customer does a true-up and continues using the licenses moving forward.

Value Shift

The value shift feature is a bit more nuanced but still quite powerful especially when living with volatile and uncertain global markets. Continuing with the example above (500 licenses over 5 years, 100 licenses per year) - what if external market pressures (or any other reason) made it so the customer couldn't consume the full 100 licenses in year 1 and moving forward - is the investment lost? No - the value of the licenses can be shifted within the EA.

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Cisco Capital

Cisco Capital has been around for a long time and offers many benefits for customers looking to finance or get creative with a payment schedule. Let's be honest - as it stands today, most customers are looking at the Nutanix platform and software portfolio for one major reason: An ESXi alternative. Sure, there are other reasons why a customer may go down the Nutanix path such as NUS, NKP, and NAI, but the Broadcom acquisition of VMware has put some customers in a real pickle.

I won't get into the details of the acquisition (at least not in this post) as there's already plenty of coverage and a lot of you reading this may have been triggered by even bringing it up. Many customers approach Cisco asking for help with their efforts to move away from ESXi as they encounter an interesting dilemma: In one hand, they more than likely faced an unplanned budgetary strain from license price increases. In the other, they lack the necessary capital to acquire new hardware or the corresponding Nutanix licenses for the transition - often a direct correlation to what's in the first hand.

Enter Cisco Capital - the financing arm of Cisco. Not only can a customer finance the Cisco UCS hardware, but when transacting the Nutanix licenses through Cisco, also able to finance the Nutanix licenses! This allows customers to relieve some pressures off the already constrained budget but also acquire and consume the Cisco HCI with Nutanix solution for their migration journey.

Let's take this one step further. Why not both?! A customer doing a Cisco Enterprise Agreement and using Cisco Capital?? Yes - this is something customers can do.

• Engineering
• Support