E92plus bites back at Barracuda with Unitrends pact

Distributor moves to fill void in its backup offering left by Barracuda termination

Following its snub by Barracuda, distributor e92plus is courting its reseller base with a replacement backup solution that it claims will offer them more flexibility and a bigger revenue opportunity.

Network security and backup vendor Barracuda axed e92plus from its UK distribution line-up last month after opting to move forward with Wick Hill and Avnet.

The termination left the distributor without a backup offering and Unitrends, a provider of all-in-one backup, archiving, instant recovery and disaster recovery, has been drafted in to fill the void.

Neil Langridge, marketing manager at e92plus, said Unitrends had fought many battles with Barracuda on its home US turf and stacks up well against his former ally.

Its technology can be run as either hardware, software or as a virtual appliance and resellers can host the offsite backup themselves, he said.

"With Barracuda, the disaster recovery was in the cloud, meaning resellers just received some of the revenue," he added.

"Barracuda's backup had done well for us but there were some challenges with it. It is tremendous that we have found a product that allows us to solve some of those challenges. We have already spoken to some Barracuda resellers and had a very positive reaction and we'd certainly look to exceed what we were doing with Barracuda."

Mike Coney, chief executive of Unitrends - which already works with UK storage distributor Diamond Point - said e92plus' appointment fits in with the vendor's international expansion drive. It grew sales 88 per cent last year, adding 390 new customers in Q4.

"Unitrends has enjoyed explosive growth in North America over the past several years," Coney said. "And while we already have a multitude of customers around the world, our goal in 2013 is to expand our international presence and sales to match the high-velocity business we have created in the US."

E92plus managing director Mukesh Gupta (pictured) added: "The Unitrends solution offers outstanding features that will enable our resellers to increase their backup business and save their customers from being bound up in the nightmare of tape. In addition, their advanced features to support virtualised or MSP environments will also enable us to offer a solution to those VARs we work with across our security and virtualisation portfolios."