On its first year anniversary of creating its Internet of Things (IoT) division, Dell is adding VMware to its IoT Partner Program.

VMware is joining the partner program at an executive level, which means it will help customers get industry-specific expertise for their IoT deployments as well as help Dell get into new markets with its IoT hardware.

In addition, VMware will be able to use its 5G Little IoT Agent (LIOTA) open-source software development kit (SDK) with Dell’s hardware (its Edge Gateway 5000 Series) to let customers build IoT apps and provide IoT gateway management.

LIOTA also acts as a bridge to VMware’s AirWatch and vRealize platforms that let users configure, monitor, and deploy IoT devices from one console. Developers also can use the open-source SDK to write apps that interact with any data center component over any transport network.

Dell’s 5G IoT partner program currently has about 50 members. Besides VMware, Dell also promoted three other partners from registered partners to associate partners. Those companies include DGLogik, which has an industrial IoT platform; Exara, which is collaborating with Dell and Intel to deliver digital oil and gas production solutions; and Foghorn, which has a platform that enables edge intelligence and analytics for industrial IoT gateways. Also joining the program as new associate members are KMC Controls, Eurotech, Nokia, and V5 Systems.

Dell’s partnership with VMware is not particularly surprising given the company is in the midst of acquiring EMC (VMware’s parent company) for an estimated $67 billion. The deal, which is expected to close later this month or next, will likely result in VMware becoming one of six major business units at Dell.

VMware will play a key role in modern 5G IT environments that Dell says will be defined by Flash memory, scale-out architectures, and cloud-enabled infrastructure that will be software-defined.