Rackspace Looks To Forge New Types Of Partnerships

The MSP has been steadily evolving its sales strategy from small businesses to midmarket and large enterprises. Along with this strategy comes the need for a new type of partner, said Glenn Reinus, vice president of sales at Rackspace, San Antonio. The company's business is split 50/50 between managing Microsoft servers, operating system and applications and Red Hat Linux products.

"We've had a lot of success with our existing referral program, and now we expect the same success with developers because they provide a lot of value for the customers not only in terms of developing applications, but maintaining these applications in a seasoned hosted environment," said Reinus.

The program's payment structure is flexible, giving partners the option of up-front commissions, recurring monthly commissions or a combination of both, said Cheryl Wolhar, director of channel sales at Rackspace.

Loyalty programs--such as a program that gives partners a free developer server hosted in Rackspace's data centers--are also being developed. In addition, customers get access to an online partner directory.

"More loyalty programs are to come based on what partners ask us for," said Wolhar.