Asigra Launches Hybrid Partner Program
One of the hardest problems in the channel right now is figuring out the right approach to cloud-based computing. Do you ignore it, continue with business as usual and risk getting left behind? Or do you embrace the cloud and risk getting too far out in front of your customers' demand? The real-world answer, of course, is probably somewhere in the middle.
A Toronto-based storage vendor, Asigra Inc., has been wrestling with this problem, as well, from the angle of trying to figure out how to attract and enable solution providers. It rolled out a fairly interesting partner program this week that could be a solid model for other vendors. Asigra makes backup and recovery software and relies on a mix of traditional VARs doing on-premise software deployments and managed service providers hosting the solution. The company's new channel program is called the Asigra Hybrid Partner Program.
"We call it a hybrid partner program to reflect the fact that partners can resell our software or resell the [backup] service to the customers," Eran Farajun, executive vice president at Asigra, tells us. "If the customer wasn't comfortable with cloud computing and now they are, you can move with them. It allows you to remain in the same backup platform as you evolve your own business."
The Asigra program includes three major groups of partners. 3D Hybrids resell the platform and maintain wholesale storage vaults that other Asigra resellers can use for managed backup service delivery. Farajun said the company will limit the number of 3D Hybrid partners to about 10, while insisting that those companies' datacenters meet industry quality standards. MSP Hybrids resell the platform and will normally have their own vault infrastructure to deliver the managed backup service. And VAR Hybrids can resell the platform as on-premise software, or they can resell managed backup services hosted by 3D Hybrids. Asigra doesn't host any data itself and relies 100 percent on indirect sales.
The company is offering some aggressive margins, including a deal-registration element that guarantees 15 percent of the final deal amount, whether the influencer wins the deal or loses it to another channel partner. For more information, visit Asigra.
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 16, 2009