GoGrid, Ingram Micro Target Cloud Computing Channel

infrastructure

The move puts GoGrid among the first cloud service providers to contribute to the Ingram Micro Cloud, a reseller enablement platform and online Cloud Marketplace for VARs and MSPs.

By teaming up with Ingram Micro, GoGrid is looking to bring VARs and MSPs into the cloud by filling the demand to migrate customers from on-premise IT to the cloud, and to help resellers adapt their business models to support new mechanisms for scale and sustained profitability, said Jack Duffy, GoGrid executive vice president of sales and business development.

"The cloud marketplace is moving fast and it's difficult for [VARs and MSPs] to keep up," he said.

Duffy said solution providers are in a delicate position as it relates to cloud computing as they have to adjust to offer a new type of IT infrastructure while adjusting their business models to accommodate annuity sales. With the old switch and server sales model solution providers knew when and how much they were getting paid, but the cloud opens a new paradigm. Signing on with Ingram Micro will give GoGrid a platform to offer education and enablement to VARs. Additionally, GoGrid will offer discounts of up to 50 percent off of its list prices for some partner segments.

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GoGrid gives partners resources and educational information via the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace, which for many channel partners is an initial introduction to the cloud and a go-to resource for cloud research. The Cloud Marketplace gives Ingram Micro VARs and MSPs in the U.S. and Canada access to aggregated cloud computing and communications service providers to build out their cloud practices.

Duffy said GoGrid is looking to broaden its engagement with the channel. Over the last six months, he said, the company has seen larger and more complex architectures come its way and will rely on a solid stable of VARs and MSPs to fulfill these growing opportunities.

GoGrid's move to better engage the channel comes as new research reveals that cloud computing could lead to channel washout and a study highlights that many end users feel their channel partners aren't fully prepared to handle their cloud computing requests.

"The real growth we feel is going to be at the VAR and MSP level," he said, noting that GoGrid currently does just above 10 percent of its business through the channel. Duffy said GoGrid, however, is going to move into the channel more aggressively and hopes that within five years that about 80 percent of its revenue is channel driven.

"In order to go after this market at any kind of scale, we can't do it without a meaningful channel," Duffy said.