Data Robotics plots SMB market assault

Storage vendor reboots for a three-pronged attack on the lower-end small business market

Storage vendor Data Robotics has overhauled its partner programme, distribution line-up and product portfolio in a bid to gain ground in the SMB space.

The firm announced last autumn that it was planning to launch an aggressive push into the SMB market over the coming year, which it kick-started with a partner recruitment drive.

Data Robotics has now relaunched its channel programme, which will be known as the Drobo Business Premier Programme.

Paul Thackeray, vice president for EMEA at Data Robotics, said the vendor has introduced a new discount structure for partners, which, when combined with the vendor's deal
registration scheme, will provide top-tier VARs with 30 per cent margin on products.

"We will help partners as much as we can with online marketing and adverts. For example, if they want to host a seminar about our products, then we will cover part of the cost," he added.

The vendor has also unveiled a new line of SMB products that will be sold exclusively through the channel, with the support of recent distribution signing e92plus.

The new Drobo Business Premier line consists of three products - including an eight-bay offsite storage product and a 12-bay iSCSI SAN device, which can be applied to support the use of business applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint.

"The products do not cost thousands and thousands of pounds, which means that the sales cycle
for VARs will be a couple of weeks long, rather than a few months," said Thackeray.

"They can also bundle backup and other software with the products to make additional revenues."

Thackeray said that e92plus, along with incumbent distributor CMS Peripherals, will have the task of finding additional partners to market the vendor's products.

"The SMB market is huge and spans many vertical and geographical markets," said Thackeray. "This a great opportunity for VARs that might be selling other storage products to SMBs, but do not have something that has been specifically created for small business use."

Neil Langridge, marketing manager at e92plus, said its partnership with Data Robotics was indicative of how tightly aligned security and storage are becoming.

"If you are a reseller tackling the issue of data security, you need to be having conversations about storage and networking with customers too," he said.

"We have a strong security portfolio, and a growing networking and storage range for that reason."