CRN Exclusive: Coho Data Embraces Distribution, To Work Solely With Synnex

Web-scale storage vendor Coho Data has added Synnex as its exclusive distributor to strengthen its reach and market intelligence as it launches a full-court channel press.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said it's looking to get its flash storage products in front of businesses that aren't being reached by Coho Data's direct sales team or its existing channel partners.

"We're facing this data explosion across IT departments," Marius Tudor, Coho Data's vice president of channel and business development, told CRN. "We believe the value (of our products) is outstanding and the need is dire."

[RELATED: Arcserve Dumps Synnex, Tech Data, To Work Exclusively With Ingram Micro]

id
unit-1659132512259
type
Sponsored post

Tudor started at Coho Data in January, and is tasked with growing its channel from making up 30 percent to 40 percent of sales today to more than 70 percent by the end of 2015. Coho Data was founded in 2011, but began shipping products only in the past year, Tudor said.

Synnex will be a big part of Coho Data's channel push, Tudor said, with nearly two dozen partners of the Fremont, Calif.-based distributor already agreeing to resell the offerings, which couple the capabilities of public cloud with the performance and scale of private cloud.

Tudor hopes to have at least 60 solution providers sourcing Coho Data products through Synnex by the end of the year.

Coho Data considered partnering with distributors such as Avnet, Arrow and Ingram Micro, Tudor said, but ultimately decided to go with just Synnex because of its strong federal market team, clear go-to-market strategy and ability to reach everyone from national direct-market solution providers to small regional VARs.

"Synnex has always walked the walk," said Tudor, who has worked with the distributor at previous employment stops. "It's an all-encompassing, right-caliber relationship for me."

Tudor said he was also impressed by Synnex subsidiary Hyve Solutions, which does large-scale data center build-outs, saying that Coho Data can leverage the division's hyperscale and service-provider focus to directly benefit end users.

Coho Data is reluctant to bring on additional distributors, with Tudor arguing that there would likely be significant overlap in their solution provider and end-user lists, resulting in needless conflict.

"Synnex will likely be the only distributor in North America," Tudor said.

Coho Data will not mandate the use of distribution for large VARs where there's already an existing vendor relationship, Tudor said, but smaller, boutique VARs will be encouraged to take advantage of what Synnex can offer.

Synnex's Coho Data team is equipped to provide solution providers with assessment, on-site and rack integration services, Joe Lau, Synnex's associate vice president of product management, wrote in an email to CRN. Synnex will also provide channel program management services for Coho Data such as enablement, pre-sales assistance, registration and quoting, Lau said.

Coho Data's channel partners should be familiar with storage, know VMware virtualization and have an Arista practice, Tudor said. Other obvious choices would be solution providers with data-management or virtualization practices, Lau said.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Racklive relies on Synnex's system integrator ecosystem to put together enterprise private clouds and plans to leverage Coho Data to build scale-out storage for its clients, according to Racklive Executive Vice President Chris Terry.

"By combining our expertise with Coho Data and Synnex's partnership, we can design, build, rack and deploy solutions faster than ever for global customers," Terry said in a statement.

But Coho Data's capabilities are beyond what other Synnex partners such as PICS ITech are looking for. Terry Rossi, CEO of the Mount Holly, N.J.-based solution provider, told CRN in an email that he typically deals with much smaller VMware instances and doesn't often get any solid-state drives into the farm, much less an entire array of flash-optimized disks.

PUBLISHED APRIL 6, 2015