Gomez Looks To Channel To Generate Some Buzz In SMB Market
The on-demand software product offerings include Backbone Monitoring, to keep an eye on response time and availability of a company's Internet-based applications; Last Mile Monitoring, to see how an end user experiences a Web site; and Private Agent, which allows customers to determine whether performance problems are happening inside or outside the firewall.
Lexington, Mass.-based Gomez recently announced a partnership with Netli, an MSP that offers Internet acceleration services, to help bring its products to small-business customers. In addition to using Gomez's agent-driven and browser-based metrics to analyze its customers' data, Netli will be reselling the services.
"We've seen a tremendous demand with the SMBs. The Internet is the great equalizer. A small company—even a very young company—has the opportunity to be as successful as a very large, well-established brand simply by providing a good experience to their end users," said Tom Meusel, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Gomez.
"The demand really drove us into developing not only pricing directed at the SMB space but establishing a channel business to allow us to scale down in that area," he said.
Meusel, a veteran channel executive, was brought in by Gomez in October to help the company develop its channel strategy. "The channel business is one in which we're going to be very methodical in the way we develop it and in the types of partnerships we put together. You really need to develop deep, meaningful relationships with select partners that result in real revenue and real success for both companies," Meusel said.
Under its reseller program, Meusel said that companies referring business to Gomez will receive a share of the revenue, but those implementing the service or integrating it into customer products will receive higher percentages. Margins begin around 5 percent, he said.
The partnership with Mountain View, Calif.-based Netli fits the model, and Netli Senior Product Manager Tim Knudsen thinks his company will see success with Gomez.
"Gomez plays a very important role in the overall value equation. What do we offer? We offer accelerated performance," Knudsen said.
"Gomez clearly is in the performance space. They're the leaders in providing performance measurements. The partnership really allows us to do a couple of things. It's one thing for us to show the chart with and without, but it's another to have it highly validated through a widely trusted industry-leading third party," he said.
Netli has been using Gomez's products to measure its own performance for a few years, but it only recently signed on to be a Gomez reseller, Knudsen said.
"The key thing about reselling it is that it really will provide customers in the market with a best-of-breed solution. They'll have the acceleration provided by Netli, and also have the ability to have visibility into performance through Gomez," he said.
Gomez's services begin at around $400 per month for small-business users and increases with the number of services a customer utilizes. Knudsen said he thinks that the on-demand software from Gomez will be a good fit for the company's small-business customers.
"As a managed service, our services essentially scale based on the needs of the customers, particularly because there's no infrastructure investment required on the part of the small business. In addition to not having to invest in infrastructure, the entire headache of operating everything is on our shoulders, the managed service provider," he said.
Over at Gomez, Meusel thinks that Netli will gain an edge over the competition in the managed services market through its partnership.
"The space that these companies play in is highly competitive. [Customers] have to trust that metrics are really reflective of the service they're buying. Companies like Netli and others are looking at Gomez as the de facto standard," he said.
"What it does do is it gives their customers confidence in the [service level agreements] they're delivering. It provides companies like Netli a way to prove value of service that can create more stickiness with that product," Meusel said.