The pipeline from a new technology to a buying customer can be fraught by a kind of language barrier, with technological jargon failing to translate to the business person. The middlemen or resellers have not always been helpful in implementing the technologies they sell. Some companies are now working to turn their ecosystem players into “translators” who can speak to customers on their own terms and get new technology up and running fast.

David Oscher, channel chief at Sphere 3D, Inc. (a VMware, Inc. customer), said that VMware makes great products, but adoption can take a while. He wants to team with solutions providers who have close relationships with customers and can help them go live with the technology much more quickly.

“We’re looking for partners that not just sell the technology, but understand what the business problems are,” he told Peter Burris (@plburris), host of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during VMworld 2016.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one app

Denny Phillips, president of technology solutions company iPro, Inc., says he was excited to partner with 3D Sphere, in particular because its Glassware 2.0 tool helps companies transition apps and other elements piecemeal.

“It doesn’t fix the problem — they still have a legacy system, but it builds the gap for them to find what their strategy is,” Phillips said.

Slow dance to cloud

Peter Bookman, global strategist at Sphere 3D, described full migration to cloud as a “perfect, beautiful dance of the endpoint and the hosted side,” which most companies cannot achieve without a good deal of time and effort.

But using virtual desktop infrastructure, application hosted technology and various device capabilities, they can move applications slowly and steadily to cloud without leaving anything behind.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of VMworld 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE