StorMagic commits to channel-only sales

StorMagic has vowed to move to a completely indirect sales model with the launch of its first global channel programme.

The vendor of software-defined storage for virtual server environments this week unveiled its Preferred Partner Programme, which currently supports 120 partners worldwide.

According to Hans O’Sullivan, CEO and co-founder at StorMagic, around 85 percent of the vendor’s business was indirect, but it is moving to a hundred percent with the launch.

The US company, which has its European HQ in Bristol, is also planning to announce its first UK distributor in the coming weeks.

The new channel programme will also provide online sales and technical training, marketing support, technical support, pre- and post-sales support and access to SvSAN software for testing and evaluation.

The firm also introduced a deal registration programme, the Champions Programme, which provides increased margin and deal protection to resellers driving the adoption of SvSAN.

The vendor is looking to sign up more virtualisation specialists to the programme. Says O’Sullivan: “Although SvSAN is not a cloud-based product, it would be an added bonus if prospective resellers have a good grasp of the technology. This would help them see where SvSAN could solve problems that often occur when companies with multiple locations rely solely on cloud based solutions.”

O’Sullivan says that StorMagic’s SvSAN is ideally suited to smaller companies or distributed enterprises. “Unlike other offerings, SvSAN achieves high availability performance with only two servers on site. All other solutions on the market need three. This cuts implementation costs immediately by one third when compared with other solutions,” he tells Channel Pro.

In addition, he says, StorMagic’s sales process is easy to understand and has “a lot less red tape for resellers to negotiate than some of bigger vendors. We have much more competitive margins and genuinely friendly help and support staff.”

In the marketplace StorMagic goes up against the likes of HP’s StoreVirtual product and VMware’s Virtual SAN – although the firm has partnerships with both companies and they work together on some joint deals – as well as DataCore.

UK partners include, Frontier Technology, D2NA, JAD Logic, CETSAT, Essex Computers Ltd (ECL) and Trunk Networks.

Says Jerry Mumford, sales manager at Frontier: “SvSAN delivers definite added value to our SME and retail sector offering and provides us with a real chance to increase our customer base. Since signing up as a StorMagic partner, we have seen a great level of engagement from the company’s channel support team and look forward this developing even further over the coming months.”