With an eye towards channel convergence, iAreaNet is launching a collaboration program that will enable VARs, agents, integrators and other channel partners to participate together in quoting full, converged communications solutions for the customer. The initiative will match up partners according to their expertise, geography and the opportunity, so that they can pursue leads together.
Businesses are facing a sea-change in their communications and IT infrastructure as they move to all-IP and to cloud-delivery models, the company explained.
“Demand for anytime, anywhere business communications is forcing us all to innovate,” said Andrew Campbell, managing partner at iAreaNet. “We are innovating with our flagship product by continuing to add functionality, and we’re innovating with our sales models. Our goal is to enable our partners to be as successful as possible as the industry navigates the inescapable transformation to an on-demand, virtualized, mobile world that’s increasingly free of traditional corporate boundaries.”
Depending on the sale, there will be a primary and a secondary lead on the accounts, with a revenue split on iAreaNet services between the two. IT specialists will retain their billable hours for software development and other professional services, while telecom partners will retain exclusive rights to commission on their bandwidth and connectivity services.
The opportunity is significant: Worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services will reach $72.9 billion in 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.6 percent, according to IDC. This rapid growth rate is more than four times the projected growth for the worldwide IT market as a whole (6.7 percent). By 2015, one of every seven dollars spent on packaged software, server and storage offerings will be through the public cloud model.
“We are very well aware that VARs are being required to supplement their traditional hardware sales with hosted services that address the demand for cloud-based infrastructure models within enterprises and SMBs,” said Campbell. “And that requires them to package in connectivity, and it requires them to be more consultative than they ever have been. It’s no longer about selling boxes by SKU number.”
At the same time, telecom-rooted channel partners, whose core value proposition has always been consultative solution selling, are being asked to deliver hosted IT and IT-related services to complement their traditional network sales, because supporting mission-critical applications has become the lifeblood of businesses, he noted.
“While the idea of the all-in-one converged partner that ‘does it all’ is a hot topic, the reality is that a joint approach that brings a best-of-breed skill set to the sales opportunity is a strategy that has legs today,” Campbell added. “Very few channel partners of any stripe have a full set of expertise across the spectrum of enterprise requirements: infrastructure, IT services and delivery, bandwidth, communications and voice services, mobility and consultancy services. That’s a lot to ask out of any organization, which is why we think this initiative will enable partners to make the most out of the cloud opportunity in a way they haven’t been able to in the past, without having to worry about channel conflict.”
iAreaOffice provides businesses, VARs and agents with a secure “office-in-the-cloud” suite includes the latest version of Microsoft Office, which includes Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, and can integrate other software to be delivered as a service, such as QuickBooks, Saga, Amicus, Fireworks or Dreamweaver. iAreaNet’s programmers can also develop and deliver CRM and custom applications, all hosted on iAreaNet’s powerful servers.