Ingram Micro Cloud has also launched a new Cloud Elevate program, in which Ingram partners who register as a partner in Ingram’s Cloud Marketplace by September 30th will receive free Ingram Micro-hosted solutions with $100 credit a month.

Ingram Micro has just made its new Cloud Marketplace, which was launched in June in the U.S., available in Canada. It has now followed that up by announcing six of Ingram’s internally hosted solutions, which were also previously launched in the U.S., are now available in Canada.

“At our Cloud Summit in April, we announced the next generation of Cloud Marketplace on Parallels software as well as a strategic partnership with Parallels,” said Renée Bergeron, ‎Vice President, Managed Services & Cloud Computing at Ingram Micro. “We launched the Cloud Marketplace in June in the U.S., and it is now available in Canada, and allows resellers to place orders and manage all of their cloud technology.”

Ingram Micro is also announcing Canadian availability of six new Ingram Micro-hosted solutions, which are managed by Softcom, the Toronto-based, wholly-owned subsidiary which Ingram Micro acquired last year. Three are hosted versions of core Microsoft products: Ingram Micro Hosted Exchange, based on Microsoft Exchange 2013; Ingram Micro Lync, based on Microsoft Lync Server 2013; and Ingram Micro SharePoint, based on Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010.

The other offerings are:

• Ingram Micro Virtual Private Servers (VPS), which is powered by Parallels virtualization technology, and offers a full-service Infrastructure as a Service solution.
• Ingram Micro Virtual Machine (VM), which is powered by Microsoft Hyper-V, and offers a full virtualization option that lets customers manage and run Windows server based solutions on Ingram Micro Cloud.
• Ingram Micro Web Hosting, which provides all the resources and services needed for channel partners to host fully managed and secure business websites for their customers.

“Resellers in the U.S, have liked these Ingram-hosted services since they were introduced,” Bergeron said. “They are competitive from a pricing standpoint, but the attraction is more from the resellers having a long term relationship with Ingram, and knowing that we will always be channel focused.”

Bergeron also said that while the Ingram-hosted services do compete with the offerings of their own vendor customers, it hasn’t really caused problems.

“We haven’t had major concerns with vendors,” she said. “We already know how to handle solutions from different vendor partners and make them all successful. We compartmentalize. If we want to be successful as an aggregator, we have to show we can sell competing solutions, and our vendor partners understand that. Since we introduced these services, none of our vendor partners have missed a beat, and have continued to see continuous growth.”

Ingram Micro Cloud also introduced a new Cloud Elevate program, in which Ingram partners who register as a partner in Ingram’s Cloud Marketplace by September 30th will receive free Ingram Micro-hosted solutions with $100 credit a month on their Cloud Marketplace account for 12 months.

“Cloud Elevate was launched in the U.S. in the second half of June and is now being launched as part of the Canadian Marketplace,” Bergeron said. “It’s innovative because we recognize that some resellers want to jump into the cloud but have to grow their internal skill set. This allows them to do that, to provision services at no cost to them, although if they choose they can sell them and make more margin.”

Bergeron said they see large numbers of partners who need to develop their cloud practices.

“We believe the end customer environment will be a hybrid cloud, and some resellers are all over the value proposition of operating a hybrid cloud model,” she said. “A large number of resellers buy cloud for their end users, and set up mailboxes, but they aren’t building a true cloud practice. They are being opportunistic, without building a practice with professional services. Gartner says less than 5% are true hybrid resellers.”

Canada is not lagging the U.S. in this regard though, Bergeron said.

“We are seeing very similar growth in traditional business in Canada as compared to the U.S., and the cloud is just about at the same proportion, even though it’s a smaller market,” Bergeron said.

“We want to encourage partners to take advantage or resources we are making available to them to expand their cloud business,” Bergeron added. “We challenge all of them to take advantage of this and build out their cloud offerings.”