Connected Data shuns the cloud as it lands in the UK
US-based vendor claims its Transporter product will help channel claw back high margins on storage products
Storage start-up Connected Data has vowed to bring high margins back to the channel after claiming the cloud has left resellers struggling to make money.
The vendor, which began trading two years ago but came out of stealth mode in February, has signed a UK deal with CMS Distribution on its flagship Transporter product. Connected Data has received more than $6m (£4m) in venture capital funding to date.
The Transporter device, which Connected Data describes as the off-cloud answer to Dropbox, allows users to share, collaborate and synchronise large amounts of data without being stored in the cloud.
The vendor claims that both cost and privacy issues are turning users off the cloud, while the channel misses out as their customers go directly to vendors.
The Silicon Valley-headquartered firm was set up by former Data Robotics founder Geoff Barrall along with a trio of other co-founders who worked together at storage firms including Overland and Bell Micro.
Connected Data's vice president of sales Tony Craythorne, who ran channels at HDS, Brocade and Bell Micro prior to his appointment, said the firm's Transporter product can give resellers the chance to earn more than they do with cloud products.
"[Transporter is] all the things you like about Dropbox, but off the cloud. Dropbox has so many privacy concerns – as do other cloud providers. You must be clinically insane to put anything private up there," he added.
"And then there is the cost: for 500GB [of storage] it is about $500 per year. From the channel's perspective, they think, ‘how do I make money from the cloud' and it is a big thing.
"They are handing over customers to someone else, and making pennies on the pound. This is a 100 per cent channel product."
Craythorne added that the distribution deal with CMS will answer a lot of pent-up demand in Europe and was a natural choice for the firm.
He said: "With CMS, [a lot of staff are] ex-Bell Micro, they are all storage guys and I know them well; they were a logical choice. They have the reach and they understand why [the product] is different.
"They are struggling the same way as everyone else on how to make money from the cloud as customers go right to cloud vendors. It is an ongoing struggle and they saw this [product] as an opportunity."
Connected Data is eyeing customers in the film industry due to its large file requirements, but also claims to have had success in the US in the healthcare and legal verticals due to the high-security nature of the data handled.
The vendor claims SMB customers are a sweet spot for the Transporter and added that resellers can make double-digit margin on the product once it is made available through CMS in June.