Atlantis stratifies partners as it makes SDS play

Californian vendor wants to replicate VMware's success in storage world as it launches tiered partner programme

Atlantis Computing is pledging extra TLC for partners that invest heavily in its brand as it looks to redefine itself as a software-defined storage (SDS) outfit.

The California-based vendor, whose roots lie in the virtual desktop space, is today launching a partner programme that will for the first time divide resellers into multiple tiers.

In the UK, a dozen of its 84 resellers will be handed top-level Gold status, giving them access to improved support, lead generation and co-marketing resources, as well as a margin bump.

The move comes after Atlantis last summer broadened its offering to address not only Citrix and VMware-based virtual desktop environments but any application workload. This propelled it firmly into the SDS market, which analyst IDC says is growing at about 40 per cent annually.

"We are trying to do the same job VMware did 15 years ago around virtual server environments and apply that to storage," said David Cumberworth (pictured), vice president of sales for EMEA at Atlantis Computing.

"To that end, we are broadening out our channel partners from being just VDI-centric to being broader based. We remain very much committed to desktop virtualisation but broadening out into the entire datacentre increases the addressable market by 40 or 50 times."

Atlantis competes not only with storage giants such as EMC and NetApp, but also small SDS start-ups such as Nexenta and Maxta, Cumberworth said.

"We also play very much in the hyper-converged space. SimpliVity and Nutanix have appliance-based offerings and we provide a very similar offering but through pure software," he explained.

Until today, partners - who include the likes of SCC and Kelway in the UK - were all lumped together in one tier. Introducing Gold and Silver tiers will enable Atlantis to protect and reward existing partners that have invested heavily in its technology and attract net new partners, Cumberworth claimed.

A new Platinum tier will be introduced at the start of 2015, he added.

"Atlantis is not big enough to be a line item in a catalogue," Cumberworth said. "We need partners who will champion the Atlantis message and make the requisite investment to carry out that messaging. In return we will ensure their margins are protected."