ASG has seen a significant recent ramp up in the amount of business done through its channel, and expects much more to come.
Michael Mayer, ASG’s vice president of channel sales
Naples, FLA-based ASG Software Solutions, (ASG), which makes a range of IT systems management, content management and cloud solutions for the enterprise, has made a move to strengthen its data protection portfolio. ASG has appointed Promark, an Ingram Micro company focused on data storage solutions, as a distribution partner in North America for the ASG Data Protection portfolio.
ASG is a veteran company, in existence since 1986, but its reliance on the channel is much newer. Earlier this year the company appointed Michael Mayer, who had held channel leadership roles at Peer 1 Hosting and VMware, as vice president of channel sales. They also introduced a global partner program, with an eye to expanding channel relationships.
“We are looking for net new logos,” Mayer said. “ASG has a long legacy of being a direct company. This is part of our natural evolution from that.”
Mayer said the channel growth in North America has been strong. While it is still under a third of sales today, that is in line with expectations. They are looking for strong channel growth over the next two years, to the point where channel sales will be significantly larger than direct.
The ASG Data Protection portfolio, notably the ASG-Time Navigator, ASG-Live Navigator and ASG-Digital Archive backup and archiving solutions was obtained when the company acquired Atempo in 2011. They used niche distribution at that time, which was supplemented in 2012 when ASG added Lifeboat Distribution as an additional distributor for this line. Still the market penetration was limited, and mainly in media and entertainment.
“Promark is very strong in the storage space, and this will open up a channel for us we historically haven’t talked to,” Mayer said.
Mayer also thinks that Promark might also be a good vehicle to distribute some of ASG’s other product lines.
“It starts with backup and recovery, but our products extend beyond that and I could see our relationship with Promark going beyond that as well,” he said.
“We are not looking for hundreds of partners through this,” Mayer added. “We have 87 partners who are active today, and we want to find more good ones who can work with us effectively.
Mayer is familiar with the Canadian market, particularly through his work with Peer 1, and has it targeted as a fruitful market to expand ASG’s presence.
“We have added some additional leadership in Canada, and we are in the process of pursuing very large and medium size distributors and resellers in the Canadian space,” he said. “There’s a lot more to come there.”
