Acronis is set to scale up its data management services channel after introducing a new product set for MSPs at the company's first ever Acronis Global Cyber Summit, reports Anthony Savvas in Miami.
The company has attracted around 1,000 registered delegates, ranging from end customers to traditional resellers and managed service providers. The new product offering is billed as making traditional data backup and protection obsolete, as it seeks to chase the majority of data management business that is outside large core data centres.
Around two years ago, Acronis was mainly seen as a data backup vendor that focused on targeting small- to medium-sized organisations, and since then it has steadily increased its product functionality to include various cybersecurity tools that address the increasing threats from ransomware and state-sponsored attacks – all seen as prime threats to the large enterprise. The strategy is to get the company's partners – Acronis is a 100% channel company – to first target the IT security and techology departments of large firms, win them over with the functionality of its product offering, and then spread the deployment across the business from the cloud to the edge and to the potentially thousands of endpoints that need protecting.
The company is now offering its Acronis Cyber Protect, Acronis Cyber Platform and Acronis Cyber Infrastructure to help the channel do just that.
Serguei Beloussov, founder and CEO of Acronis, says: “A new approach to data management and protection is needed to meet modern challenges – one that addresses the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity and security of data. Acronis calls these the Five Vectors of Cyber Protection, or SAPAS, and our suite of solutions are designed to specifically address all of the vectors.”
Acronis has a worldwide channel network that is approaching 50,000 partners, that are said to have helped achieve a 200% increase in cloud growth this year, compared to 30% overall growth in 2019, which includes business from traditional on-premise sales.
Beloussov wants to use some of the $147m investment Acronis received from Goldman Sachs last month to help convert more of its partners to MSPs to help generate even more could growth. We reported earlier this month [Acronis puts aside $10m to convert resellers to MSPs] that $10m has been set aside to help do this.
Partners who sign up for a cloud service provider contract at the Acronis Global Cyber Summit this week will get six months of free software usage. Any other new cloud service provider who signs up to be a partner between 7 October and 31 December 2019 will get three months of free usage.
Acronis is also launching a programme in Q4 that will educate traditional resellers on the benefits available if they convert to MSPs, including acquiring new customers, reducing churn and increasing revenues. The Acronis channel network currently has over 5,800 active service providers who are offering Acronis’ cyber protection solutions, so there is clearly some way to go to convert a much larger chunk out of its 50,000 partner total.
Of the new or enhanced repackaged products, Acronis Cyber Protect integrates seven key cyber protection capabilities into one easy-to-use solution, including backup, disaster recovery, AI-based protection against malware, data authenticity certification and validation, vulnerability assessments, patch management and remote monitoring and management.
The Acronis Cyber Platform provides developers and ISVs the ability to customise, extend and integrate Acronis cyber protection solutions. And Acronis Cyber Infrastructure aims to deliver cost-efficient, easy-to-use and reliable hyper-converged infrastructure optimised for cyber protection deployments.
“Acronis is a close partner and marketplace leader,” said Jeff Bishop, chief product officer at ConnectWise. “The company has held the innovation banner high in the fast-growing convergence of data protection and cybersecurity. We are excited to have a role in the Acronis Cyber Platform through meaningful mutual integrations, which will certainly elevate the end-user experience and accelerate the Acronis ecosystem.”
