To expand its portfolio of solutions available through its channel partners, Windstream announced that it is certifying channel managers to sell a selection of the company’s key data center products. Until now, all of Windstream’s data center solutions have been sold only by its direct sales channel.
Initially, Windstream will provide channel partner certification for four products – colocation, dedicated servers, Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), and unified email management – with plans to eventually expand the offering to include additional data center products and solutions.
“The addition of these products to our partners’ portfolios will allow them to offer their customers a more robust Windstream solution—from the network all the way out to the cloud,” said Don Perkins, senior vice president of Business Marketing for Windstream. “The data center products they will now sell are complementary to the solutions they have already been offering; it’s a great fit. The extension of our relationship will be mutually beneficial.”
Approximately half of Windstream’s channel managers received the data center certification training in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this month. These channel managers then trained their agents and began selling Windstream data center solutions on Feb. 25. Additional channel managers and agents will complete certification training this summer.
In addition to its cloud computing and managed services, Windstream offers a full suite of advanced network communications and technology solutions, including voice and data services such as VoIP, SIP trunking, MPLS, and dedicated high-speed Internet.