Some emerging cloud data management vendors gave updates to their channel strategies in London last week.
At the Technology Live! event organised by PR outfit A3 Communications for analysts and press, the likes of Hammerspace, Nodeum and Nebulon reported on the channel openings they expected from their products going forward.
Hammerspace
Hammerspace introduced its Global Data Environment to the US market in 2021, and entered the EMEA market in earnest last year. Its technology, says the company, “breaks down the boundaries” of data access for users and applications anywhere in the world, to create, process, store and protect data in any existing data centre or on any preferred cloud infrastructure.
Fortune 100- and 200-type companies are the main target market, as they are “large enough to take full advantage of the technology”. Hammerspace is a 100%-channel player and is now in the process of ramping up its headcount in pre- and post-sales, and aiming to improve its technical training for partners.
Molly Presley, SVP for marketing at the vendor, said the launch for a community programme for training and other areas would come “in a quarter or two”, and would cover things like data compliance with GDPR, for instance.
There are already 15 “active” partners in the UK, and the company will continue with its two-tier channel model across EMEA, as distributors “offer specialist knowledge of the market”, and they “know all the customers”, said Presley. “Distributors offer us a quicker way to scale-up,” she added.
Over the last year, the firm is said to have generated a 200% increase in turnover, and expects to see a 400% increase over the next year.
Along with the existing partners in the UK, there are also 15 in the rest of EMEA. When asked by IT Europa how this would scale-up, Presley said “perhaps we will have a total of 60 partners by this time next year”. “This is a re-architecture play, not a box-shifting one, and some partners don’t want what we have to offer. But that’s fine, we aren’t targeting hundreds of partners in this space,” Presley said.
Nodeum
Belgium-headquartered Nodeum is small, and is “approaching” a turnover of €1m, and currently employs ten.
At the moment, it is hiring new partners in Germany, and also some in Eastern Europe, to go with the ones it has in the UK and France, for instance.
A number of customers for its data management software for hybrid storage come to it direct, through word of mouth. The software is already used for high data workloads across universities, research bodies and media production, for instance, and the firm is also targeting financial services.
We met Nodeum at an event in Paris last year, and, at the time, around 60% of sales were direct, with 40% through the channel, but the indirect sales are continuing to expand as more VARs and MSPs come on board.
CEO Valery Guilleaume confirmed at Technology Live! he expected more partners being used to deploy the software and supporting it on an ongoing basis.
Nebulon
Nebulon provides cards that are inserted in company servers to optimise cloud and edge data connectivity. The boards are sold by HPE, Supermicro, Dell, and Lenovo, for instance, with those vendors’ reseller partners also joining the party.
When we met Nebulon in California last year, the firm said it was also starting to scale-up its relationships with system integrators like IT service providers and consulting companies, and this effort in the US and across EMEA has continued this year.
At Technology Live!, Nebulon demonstrated new zero trust and ransomware security efforts, and took the wraps off two new boards, with one of them aimed at the edge market.
Telcos, for instance, installing Nebulon at the edge in mobile towers can reduce the number of their servers to two from five, says the firm. And cloud service providers are promised 40% savings in their infrastructure costs.
Craig Nunes, Nebulon co-founder and chief operating officer, told IT Europa: “These new offerings give the channel a boost with extra product and switch channels to exploit, at the edge and in environments where data centre transformation is needed.”
