Whiptail channel boss aims for VMware-style success
Sally Reade claims her experience at VMware and Veeam leaves the flash vendor well placed to replicate their success
Flash vendor Whiptail has announced the appointment of its EMEA channel director, Sally Reade, who said she hopes to replicate the startup success she enjoyed at VMware and Veeam.
Reade, who joins the firm from EMC where she held the role of channel sales manager, said she is heavily focusing on the channel as part of the firm's expansion plans.
The company, which claims to bring high-performance flash to the enterprise market at a lower price, signed a distribution deal with SDG last month. It is on the hunt for more distributors to join its line-up and is currently in talks with potential partners.
The firm claims it does not compete with EMC and NetApp because it only operates in the top 10 per cent of the datacentre.
Reade claimed that a number of firms are keen to add Whiptail to their portfolio, and said that the UK is set for more than the standard two distributors per EMEA region due to the market's size.
Before Reade's appointment was made official, the vendor's EMEA general manager Brian Feller said that the then-impending news of her arrival brought "huge credibility" to the company due to her experience with startups.
Reade explained how her startup experience is set to benefit the flash vendor.
She said: "The first startup I joined was MicroStrategy, and I began in a sales background and [helped] to build it from the ground up.
"The second was VMware. I was employee number 12 in EMEA for them; it has a very good startup model which was very much focused on the channel. What VMware has become was due to being such a strong advocate of the channel.
"The next startup I went to was Veeam where I was its third employee. It would be nice [to see Whiptail see similar success], and I think it is well-placed to do so."
Whiptail currently has 15 partners in the UK, including VAR Softcat, but aims to sign an additional 20 by the end of 2012.