Violin insists it has ditched its direct ways

Flash vendor admits its old go-to-market strategy was not channel friendly as it talks up transformation process

Violin Memory has insisted that the channel is now its top priority after admitting that in the past it was not partner friendly.

The flash firm makes the claims as it unveils its new-look channel partner programme and pledges its allegiance to the channel.

Violin has had a shaky time recently – a string of EMEA channel execs defected to aggressive flash rival Pure Storage and its revenue for 2014 fell 27 per cent to $79m (£46.49m).

But its new vice president for worldwide channel Jeff Nollette said the company was "transforming", starting with its go-to-market strategy.

"We are relaunching the company around two major pillars: one is the flash storage platform and the other is our go-to-market model," he said. "We are extremely channel centric today.

"Our legacy is as a tier-zero, niche storage product player with very high performance and a leader in the flash industry. But we did not have a very strong channel, frankly, because the product itself did not lend itself to a strong partner value proposition. When you have a fairly small total addressable market and a niche product, it is not well suited to broad-base acceptance in the channel.

"So with the introduction of our new flash storage platform and associated products it is a much different channel play as we are in the tier-one and tier-two primary storage markets. We are effectively tripling our total addressable market."

He said in the past, Violin targeted a segment of the market worth $5bn, but now it has moved "down market", the total addressable market will be worth upwards of $15bn.

Nollette added that the new partner programme will help partners cash in.

"We didn't really have the right go-to-market or the right product to be successful in the channel because of the relatively small addressable market and the complexity of the product," he said. "We've got a great margin opportunity for partners and we've got extensive training and support programmes and enhanced tools which we are going to be rolling out... which makes it much easier for partners."