Pure Storage Adds Tiers, Enhancements to Channel Program

Flash storage company Pure Storage has formed an international partner advisory board, the Pure Storage Partner Advisory Council (PAC), and unveiled advancements to its Pure Storage Partner Program (P3), including new partner tiers, expanded benefits, training tools and support features.

“Storage systems and services are among the bestsellers in the channel today, and solution providers are being called upon by their enterprise and midmarket customers to provide equipment, software and support to ensure data availability and integrity,” said Larry Walsh, president and CEO of The 2112 Group, a channel research and strategy firm. “Flash continues to become an increasingly viable alternative to legacy enterprise storage solutions, making it a prime opportunity for the channel.”

In its first full year of channel operations, the company has signed more than 100 partners worldwide to sell its FlashArray product, and has achieved more than 125-percent consecutive quarter-over-quarter channel growth, it said. The company has aggressively expanded its international footprint as well, securing strategic partnerships with resellers across the EMEA and APAC regions, including Softcat in the United Kingdom, Antemeta in France, Observatory Crest in Australia, EmFrontier in Korea, and Tokyo Electron Device Limited (TED) in Japan.

“Flash storage is gaining acceptance as a mainstream medium now—and not just for performance gain,”  said Clive Longbottom, founder and service director at Quocirca. “The channel needs to be prepared for this and should look to identify those storage vendors who can demonstrate a definite capability to support such workloads in a highly performant manner, at a cost-effective price point. The vendor should be a trusted partner in the relationship, providing all the additional support the channel company needs.”

The new Partner Advisory Council is an invitation-only coalition. Representatives include:

  • Applied Computer Systems (ACS): Kurt Steinhauer, Vice President of Sales
  • Ahead: Eric Kaplan, CTO
  • AntemetA: Bertrand Bombes de Villiers, Vice President of Sales and Marketing
  • CloudGov Technologies: Mike Gregory, President
  • Corus360: Steve Johnson, President & CEO
  • Dewpoint: Brian Dumont, Vice President of Sales
  • ePlus: Andy Shulman, senior Vice President of West Sales
  • Integrated Archive Systems (IAS): Amy Rao, CEO
  • Integrated Data Storage (IDS): Justin Mescher, CTO
  • Iron Bow Technologies: Louis Hackerman, Head of Business Development
  • Softcat: Sam Routledge, Solutions Director UK

The P3 program has meanwhile added three tiers: Gold, Silver and Authorized. The P3 Gold and Silver Partner Tiers were developed to support partners at different stages of maturity. Partners earn greater benefits and rewards as they achieve sales and technical accreditations, participate in demand generation marketing programs and deliver pre- and post-sales customer value-add services (POCs and installation services).

Other enhancements include PureRewards: a rewards based program for delivering pre- and post-sales value-added services; deeper deal registration discounts based on higher tiers; more take-out program margin guarantees; MDF and incentives based on specified demand-generation activities; demo lab gear seed units; the PureAcademy online learning management system to on-board partners; sales and technical training videos delivered by sales experts; iMobile access and downloadable sales acceleration resources; the PureDemand suite of online and offline demand-generation tools; automated content syndication; co-brandable templates and campaigns; and e-mail and call blitz appointment programs.

“We are exceedingly proud of P3’s traction and successes over the past year,” said David Hatfield, president at Pure Storage. “The response from industry leading VARs and distributor organizations has been extremely gratifying and validates that our decision to be 100 percent committed to the channel in our go-to-market strategy was the right one.”

He added, “We will continue to invest in the execution of our channel-led sales efforts, as we strive to be best in class across all enterprise storage companies. We will we work closely with our newly formed partner advisory council to deliver next generation solutions that address customer pains like never before, and develop innovative sales and technical support tools that will support a thriving partner ecosystem.”

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