Magirus tells VARs to customise the cloud

Distributor wants partners to combine Colt's cloud services with their own offerings

Pan-European distributor Magirus wants partners to lean on its recent tie-up with Colt Technology Services to roll out customised cloud services.

Magirus announced last month it had signed a deal that will let partners resell Colt's storage and virtual datacentre infrastructure-as-a-service (IAAS) offerings.

The cloud services, which are accessed via a web portal, can be sold by VARs either on a pay-as-you-go or fixed-fee basis, according to end-user demands.

Speaking to ChannelWeb, Denise Bryant, UK managing director of Magirus, said VARs would be encouraged to combine Colt's cloud services with their own offerings.

"It is important for our partners to know that we have no interest in competing with them in the cloud," said Bryant. "So we are taking a step back [in certain areas] and will let them add their own solutions and intellectual property to deliver differentiated solutions."

Disaster-recovery-as-a-service and backup-as-a-service would be good companion products to those laid on by Colt, she added.

The firm is planning to roll out software, licensing and authentication cloud services in due course.

It will also run a series of seminars and events over the coming weeks to educate partners about marketing its cloud portfolio to customers.

"It is for the VARs that are talking about virtualisation or using datacentres to deliver private clouds," said Bryant. "They will be our go-to partners for this and we want them to become their customers' trusted cloud advisers."