Headquarters: Richardson, Tex.
Technology Sector: Storage
Key Product: SafeEvault Online Backup Manager
Year Founded: 2006
Number of Channel Partners: 20 in the U.S.
Ideal Channel Partner: Small business-focused solution providers
Why You Should Care: SafeEvault provides online backup for customers and recurring revenue for solution providers.
The Lowdown: SafeEvault recognizes the value in working with solution providers who are selling online backup to customers, which is why the vendor offers a lucrative path to recurring revenue for partners.
The expertise that solution providers bring to the table is attractive to SafeEvault because it helps everyone get what they want: customers get peace of mind while partners and the vendor all make money.
"The beauty of working with the channel is that solution providers already know where a customer's critical data is stored," said Jerry Bullard, director of channels for SafeEvault.
SafeEvault's Online Backup Manager (OBM) allows solution providers to provide both incremental and differential backups for customer data at a file and block level. The data is stored on SafeEvault's servers, reducing the infrastructure costs for solution providers. Still, there is money to be made of both parties, with the channel catching price breaks in several different ways.
According to Bullard, solution providers get a 20 percent discount on the price off the top as well as a volume discount, based on how much data is being sent to SafeEvault.
"In addition to those two discounts, solution providers can receive a discount if they pay for OBM annually," said Bullard. "That annual payment gives them 12 months of service with us for the price of 10."
Solution providers, then, can pass any or all of that savings along to customers as a way to differentiate themselves from rival VARs.
SafeEvault requires no contractual obligation from its solution providers.
"If a solution provider feels they aren't being competitive with us or aren't making money then we can sit down and look at what pieces are missing," said Bullard.