Acronis on aggressive partner hunt as it shifts to cloud

Data-protection vendor launches new cloud partner programme to support partners selling its cloud solutions

Data protection vendor Acronis is looking to double its cloud business over the next two years and has launched a new partner programme to help its resellers with this transition.

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Singapore, Acronis began life as a consumer backup company and then developed on-premise data protection for businesses. It began to make its first cloud solutions in 2014 and is now going on an aggressive push into this market.

About 20 per cent of its sales are currently cloud-based, but it wants this to increase to around 40 per cent by the end of 2017, Jakob Olsen, managing director of Europe, told CRN.

"I was brought in to help Acronis move from products to services, and then to cloud, which for us is the future," he said. "For us it's a massive transformation."

In conjunction with the move, Acronis, which counts Symantec as a competitor, has launched a new partner programme for cloud, which went live this week and aims to support its resellers wanting to make the transition.

Within the partner programme, resellers are required to do a minimum of £250 per month to get on the scheme, then there is a sliding scale of discounts as partners sell more.

It is split into three tiers: Platinum, Gold and Authorised.

To become a Platinum partner, resellers must have four Acronis sales reps, two certified engineers and a revenue requirement which it was not able to disclose. The benefits of this level include the highest deal registration rebate, 24/7 phone support, leads and marketing support and MDF.

Gold partners are required to have two Acronis sales reps, one certified engineer and a revenue requirement it was not able to disclose. Benefits include 24/7 phone support, leads and marketing support, a deal reg rebate and MDF.

Authorised partners are required to have training in the technology and can receive deal reg rebates through distribution.

Olsen said feedback from partners has been very positive.

"The partners we have spoken to so far said they are very excited about it, because it's simple and many of our competitors have extremely complex programmes," he said. "It's very simple to go in and see this is what I'm going to get out of the programme and it's very aggressive on price."

Currently Acronis has more than 850 UK channel partners, but Olsen said he wants to move a lot of these existing partners over to its cloud portfolio and also sign up new partners. He said he would be "disappointed" if he added fewer than 100 partners to the cloud programme by the end of the year.

This is part of a wider global push with Acronis hopeful of adding between 2,000 and 3,000 partners to its cloud programme.

Olsen said the time is right for the move and that there is a burgeoning opportunity for cloud backup.

"I think the market is ready," he said. "I don't think we are seeing an explosion of cloud, but we are seeing massive growth. I think many traditional companies are looking at cloud and the first thing they do when they look at cloud is say 'maybe we should just do some basic backup; it's the easiest thing to do'. We provide that service and so I think we will be successful with this."