Egnyte launches European partner recruitment drive

Enteprise file sharing firm looking to combine direct sales with new channel partnerships expansion

Enteprise file-sharing specialist Egnyte is set to open recruitment of European channel partners, as it looks to expand upon its mainly direct sales approach.

Egnyte has previously been operating a direct sales approach, along with around 100 affiliated resellers across Europe, on a transactional basis. It is now hoping to formalise ties with European channel partners.

Ian McEwan, who has just been hired by Egnyte as vice president and general manager for EMEA, told CRN, that Egnyte will be looking to some of its "usual suspects" in the recruitment process, and convert some of its affiliated partners into official channel partnerships.

According to McEwan, it will be looking for reseller partners who are selling storage hardware, but also cloud-only partners. He also said that initially Egnyte will be going out to "pull the channel into opportunity, rather than them bringing us into them".

But Egnyte will continue to operate direct sales, as well as through the channel, according to McEwan.

"The model we are trying to achieve as we go through the next stage of growth will be to augment our current sales model with the channel," McEwan said.

McEwan would not comment on how many partners Egnyte is looking to recruit but he did say that he was hoping to achieve 100 per cent year on year growth for the company.

According to McEwan, the reason Egnyte is now looking for European partners, is the "breadth" which it allows them to cover market, and also customers were requesting that it embraces the channel.

Egnyte has opened new European headquarters in Heathrow, and is aiming to focus its expansion in the UK, Scandinavia and Holland.

McEwan said Egnyte is distinguished from its rivals, who include Dropbox and Box, by its hybrid approach, which allows customers to store their data in both the cloud and in local storage.