The Embedded OEM program enables TAP Program members (ISV/IHVs) to embed VMware products such as VMware vSphere, the industry’s most reliable virtualization platform, VMware vCenter Server, the most advanced virtualization management platform, VMware Workstation and others tightly into their solutions and sell the combined solution and support to end users worldwide. This approach enables OEMs to enhance the end-user experience by providing a pre-configured virtualized solution and end-user support right out of the box while reducing the complexity of deployments.

By providing a simple way to bundle VMware products into partner solutions, the program provides many benefits to OEMs such as:

• Increase in the available customer budget for the OEM partner’s solution by lowering the total investment in server hardware due to consolidation of multiple servers in a solution
• Improved competitiveness and the overall partner solution experience by increasing the functionality that can be provided on a single physical server
• Decrease in professional services deployment costs by simplifying configuration set up and deployment
• Reduction in time-to-money by getting a solution deployed more rapidly
• Ability to earn margin on VMware products and support offerings via OEM discount
• Ability to enter new markets by creating the “right sized” bundles of virtualized solutions that work out of the box
• Leverage the VMware HCL (Hardware Compatibility List) by relying on pre-tested hardware instead of testing to a vast number of physical hardware configurations

These benefits, coupled with the OEMs’ deployment and support preferences, make the Embedded OEM Program a better vehicle for OEMs to take more control of the virtual infrastructure deployments of their customers than a traditional joint selling or reselling relationship.