Cloud storage and content management mainstay Box.net is turning to the channel to refine its cloud vision and has launched an official partner program for resellers and solution providers to increase their cloud revenue.
According to Karen Appleton, vice president of business development at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Box, the company realized it needed to work with partners to better attack the market. The company has launched two new programs, a Certified Reseller program and a Solution Providers program, to bring partners into Box's cloud fold.
"Partners need to manage the shift from products to services," Appleton said, adding that the Box programs add a new way for solution providers to take on a trusted advisor role to move their clients to the cloud with offerings that are easy to implement, integrate with other cloud offerings and create the ability to build custom apps.
Box Certified reseller partners will have access to recurring revenue margin, which Appleton estimates is 30 percent over the life of the account, compared to competitors, that average margin of 8 percent for the first year and 6 percent for subsequent years. Resellers also manage the entire sales cycle and provider training, billing and first-level support, Appleton said.
Meanwhile, Box Certified solution providers receive sales and marketing tools and have the ability to provision solutions. They also receive Box APIs and a partner toolkit to offer integrated and custom cloud offerings leveraging Box.
"They provide the glue between the company and our solution," Appleton said of solution provider partners.
Box currently boast 6 million users globally and 60,000 business users. And it is used within 73 percent of Fortune 500 companies, Appleton said.
Appleton said it's too early to say how much of Box's business is generated through the channel, but said that it has relationships with several distributors in the works and there are significant opportunities to expand.
At the start, the Box partner program has more than 30 partners on board, including cloud solution provider Appirio, Asia Pacific distributor HEDLOC and reseller PC Mall.
