VMware is set to push its software-defined networking technology as it enabled channel partners to sell it last week.

The virtualisation giant said its NSX network virtualisation software will be added to its price list on Friday, meaning resellers can promote it as the company seeks to compete with rival Cisco in the space.

CEO Pat Gelsinger said: "We’re now broadening the sales channel for NSX in a big way,", adding that it has more than 100 paying customers for NSX, including NTT and Starbucks.

VMware has priced NSX at a subscription of £304 per virtual machine per year, or as a licensed add-on to its vCloud Suite for £2,600 per computer.

It’s also available on vSphere, its virtualised operating system, for £4,464.

The company released NSX last October but until this announcement was selling it directly, because, it says, the new product would have proved a hard sell for channel partners at first.

NSX is considered a fairly complex and new technology in the industry, that may not yet be in the plans of some enterprises.

The core component of Cisco’s rival product, ACI (Application Centric Infrastructure), is not set to be available until over summer, according to reports, though the initial version of ACI came out last autumn.