Tech Data Canada has added software offerings from BitTitan to its line card, giving the distributor a number of new tools, including a way to migrate from other mail tools to Office 365.

Under the deal, BitTitan’s offerings, including MigrationWiz and UserActivitation, will be made broadly available to the channel in Canada. Manal Guirguis, director of product management for Tech Data Canada, said the new offerings – MigrationWiz in particular – will prove valuable to solution providers whose customers are looking to move to the cloud.

“It’s an easy way to minimize their time and efforts, and help their users accept cloud as a very viable solution,” she said.

Offering such a migration tool is new territory for the distributor, but is in a space that’s seeing a lot of action. A number of tools are emerging to help smooth the path for businesses to move to the cloud with applications like on-premise e-mail and calendaring, often seen as first-to-the-cloud types of apps.

“We see the cloud as the fastest-growing technology area in the industry, and this product gives [solution providers] an opportunity to change the delivery model, to change how resellers manage migrating customers from hosting on customers’ premises or on their premises, into the cloud.”

BitTitan will fit in with Tech Data’s Software Business Unit, a growing area for the company which has seen a move towards electronic licensing and download models, with tools like StreamOne already up and running in Canada, and more still to debut in the near future.

As well as providing tools to help migrate from on-prem or hosted e-mail solutions into the cloud, BitTitan’s offerings include tools for the ongoing optimized management of e-mail workloads. That means along with the initial benefits of a smoother transition to the cloud, resellers will be able to better support their customers’ e-mail infrastructures once they’re running in the cloud, Guirguis said. Such offerings are monthly subscription services, adding an element of recurring revenues to the mix for solution providers seeking to diversify their revenue streams.

The distributor sees most of the opportunity for BitTitan’s tools – and for the cloud market in Canada in general – in the SMB space, the traditional domain of many IT solution providers. While Canadian enterprises are keeping an eye on the cloud, and formulating their own strategies to get there, it’s in the SMB space where companies are most accepting of the idea of moving to the cloud, and where companies who make the move are likely to see the biggest benefits in terms of cost reduction or feature enhancements.

“We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift where the delivery and consumption models for technology are changing,” Guirguis said.

BitTitan’s products are available now through Tech Data Canada’s online software licensing tools, or through its licensing desk.