Channel partnering moves abound at WPC 2016
While Microsoft discussed its channel partner strategy and programs at its Worldwide Partner Conference this week, a number of vendors at WPC 2016 followed suit with their own channel partnering announcements.
Metalogix provided details on its Metalogix Advantage Partner Program (MAPP), which initially will focus on Sharepoint-to-Office 365 migrations.
The MAPP program offers participants a “Business-in-a-Box” starter kit that provides white papers, best practices, sample project plans, a sample statement of work, pre-migration assessment tools, and PowerShell scripts and sample code. The starter kit aims to help systems integrators build a repeatable migration service, according to Metalogix.
The idea is to give partners “a jumpstart on building a solution,” said Joe Sullivan, director of alliances at Metalogix, which provides management to migrate, manage and secure content across enterprise collaboration platforms.
MAPP, an expansion of Metalogix’s existing partner program, seeks to sign no more than 50 partners in 2016, Sullivan said. Additional MAPP components targeting the management and security of collaboration assets will roll out later this year.
In alliance activity, distributor Arrow Electronics Inc. and Equinix Inc., a data center and colocation services provider, said they will offer preconfigured hybrid cloud packages that will let resellers and managed service providers deploy hybrid cloud offerings in the enterprise market. The companies featured their first preconfigured offerings at WPC 2016. Those packages are built on Hewlett Packard Enterprise hardware and software, and use Equinix Cloud Exchange to connect with Microsoft Azure.
BitTitan, which focuses on cloud services enablement and managed services automation, unveiled an alliance with file sharing and collaboration vendor Dropbox. BitTitan, which now joins the Dropbox Premier Partner Program, plans later this year to offer Dropbox resellers free access to its MSPComplete tools and resources. BitTitan said its partners, meanwhile, will be able to generate new services revenue around Dropbox.
The channel partnering arrangement will “simplify and accelerate” the task of migrating files and folders into Dropbox Business, according to BitTitan.
A new partnership between Hostway Services Inc. and WSM International aims to deliver migration services to customers that seek to transfer their IT infrastructure to Hostway’s Azure managed cloud services. WSM offers turnkey IT migration services and has become the preferred provider to Hostway customers planning to move to Hostway’s Azure-based cloud.
Jason Cowie joined Zerto as the company’s senior director of global partner and channel sales, kicking off his new role at WPC 2016. Cowie formerly had executive roles at companies including Virtual Instruments, Configuresoft, and Microsoft. Zerto offers disaster recovery and virtual data replication software.