Entatech cloud boss hails 'phenomenal' partner interest

Entacloud venture to provide partners with infrastructure-as-a service, among other cloud-based services

Entatech's new cloud chief Paul Lloyd (pictured) has claimed its new Entacloud business has already seen "phenomenal" interest from partners.

Lloyd, who has worked at resellers including Comtec, Keltec and SCC, joined Entatech earlier this month to launch the new cloud division.

Speaking with CRN, Lloyd said Entacloud is quickly gaining attention from resellers.

"Given where we are at with this, and it's only my 17th day, the interest is phenomenal," he said. "The amount of interest and enquiries [we've had], I didn't expect anything like this until January. A lot of it is people wanting to understand what we've got and how it matches up to what they have got. But outside that, it's people looking to do something for their customers."

Entacloud is based on US firm Egenera's cloud platform, which Entatech has modified and provided as a channel-only play that it claims is ideally designed for MSPs. It provides partners with a "complete cloud in a box" with infrastructure-as-a service, backup and disaster recovery-as-a-service, as well as other cloud-based services.

Lloyd said he has already signed up two resellers onto the service and has had interest from 100 partners. He said he doesn't have any specific targets of how many resellers he would like to sign up, but did say he wants to see every one of Entatech's partners using the cloud platform in "one way shape or form".

He hopes the Entacloud business will hits sales of around £1m after its first 12 months, and then will look to double that the year after, he added.

Lloyd said he didn't think Entacloud was a completely unique model, but said its advantage over the likes of Microsoft and Amazon is the reseller bills the customer directly, whereas many of these big players deal with the customer and just give the reseller a certain cut.

He also said because he has come from the reseller world and into distribution, he understands the needs of partners when it comes to the cloud.

"I would like to think I know what they want," he said. "I'm not just trying to sell them a platform. It' about helping them with free advice with a pack and a route to becoming a cloud services provider. There will be help with training for sales teams and with payment plans."