British vendor hints at possible US expansion

Droplet Computing CTO speaks to CRN about widening its global partner base

British vendor Droplet Computing might be expanding its operations into the US in order to capitalise on customer interest, according to founder and CTO Peter von Oven.

Droplet specialises in container technology that enables applications to be delivered on any device by decoupling applications from the operating system.

Von Oven hinted to CRN that Droplet is considering a move into the US to cement its presence in that market.

"We have a lot of interest from outside the UK," he said.

"The amount of opportunity we saw in the UK was far beyond what I think we ever thought it would be, having built the solution and taking it to market and taking the market feedback.

"You can multiply that opportunity by 10 or 20 or 30 times in the US purely because of the size of the country."

Von Oven was coy about Droplet's plans to open an office in North America, saying it is "under discussion" and that any such move would be organic rather than acquisitive.

The CTO was also keen to emphasise Droplet's channel-only focus in the UK and that any move into North America would be done with this focus in mind.

"We would do an expansion by ourselves [rather than acquire] in partnership with our distributor Prianto," he explained.

"We wouldn't have a direct sales force, we would go through the channel model.

"I've already got feet on the street - we're engaged with Prianto's sales teams - so they will manage the partners on our behalf and we will go over to the US and help drive that."

Last year, von Oven told CRN that the vendor was seeking to recruit 20 partners, but it has since exceeded that target with a partner base of 30 across the UK, US and Europe.

The CTO attributed this interest from the US and Europe to Prianto, which operates in all three regions.

"We started with Prianto as a foundation for our growth and they identified partners and interest from the US," he explained.

"Having spread our wings across Europe and the US has naturally lifted our number of partners, who range from consultancy boutique-type partners who just specialise in application delivery and end-user computing to some of the big guys who are engaged in multimillion-pound transformation application delivery projects."

Droplet has around 20 partners in the UK, including XMA, said van Oven, adding that it is now seeking to widen its channel by recruiting five to 10 partners in both the North American and European markets.

"That's where we're going to concentrate on now; we're getting opportunities and we're talking to partners on a daily basis in mainland Europe, the US and Canada," said von Oven, adding that the vendor is still keen to work with new UK partners.