C4L looks to treble partner numbers inside a year

Hosting outfit wants to turn 100 resellers into 300 with offer of 30 per cent margins in growing market

Connectivity and co-location specialist C4L is looking to treble its number of channel partners over the next year.

The Dorset-based vendor currently works with 100 resellers and aims to grow this to 300 by this time next year. The firm, which specialises in hosted datacentre, telecoms and storage, wants to sign up VARs, managed services players, IT support specialists and network infrastructure providers.

Pete Hill, C4L partner manager, said: "Typically resellers have had to go to different vendors for networking and datacentre services, adding both cost and complexity to their sales and ultimately eroding margin. Not only are we a one-stop shop for these [resellers], but we offer the channel a range of solutions, such as disaster recovery and VoIP, that they can layer on top of the core datacentre and network services."

The vendor claims partners can cash in on product margins of up to 30 per cent. Resellers can also take on C4L's wares as a white-label package. The connectivity provider pointed to recent IDC research, which claimed the co-location market in France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands will be worth more than £1.7bn in 2013.

"The channel clearly recognises that the future for reselling hardware is bleak; not only have margins been eroded but customers are increasingly looking at off-premise solutions," said Hill. "We can help channel partners transform themselves without making huge investments through our range of services."