Dive Brief:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise is talking to "several hundred" Dell-EMC partners this week in hopes of recruiting them to sell the HPE product portfolio, according to a CRN report.

• HPE has reportedly invited the partners to private meetings, product demos and other events to coincide with HPE’s Discover Conference in Las Vegas this week.

• The company is also offering "special accommodations" to allow partners to move into the HPE channel program at the same level they are at with Dell-EMC, CRN said.

Dive Insight:

HPE appears to be capitalizing on how some Dell-EMC partners are growing increasingly nervous about the coming merger.

"Those EMC partners are worried about how much R&D EMC is going to get in the future," HPE CEO Meg Whitman told CRN. "And EMC has grown through acquisitions. Trust me, there is not going to be any capital available for acquisitions for a while."

Dell will take on an estimated $49.5 billion in debt to finance its record-breaking $67 billion acquisition of EMC, which is expected to be finalized before the end of the year. EMC partners could look to work with HPE to avoid the potential disruptions the merger will likely cause. Among other things, HPE is touting the success it’s having in the all-flash storage market as part of its sell.

HPE may also be preparing for potential challenges in the cloud infrastructure market. HPE was the leading cloud IT infrastructure vendor in 2015, with 15.7% of the market. Dell was second with 10.6% of the market, followed by EMC at 7.6%. The merged Dell-EMC company is poised to take the top spot away from HPE, which may be part of the reason HPE is heavily recruiting Dell-EMC partners.