Altaro, which is focused largely on Hyper-V and the SMB market, has launched both a new MSP program and a free multi-tenanted console to manage it.
Stephen Chetcuti Bonaviti, Altaro’s Co-Founder and VP of Sales and Marketing
Virtual machine data protection Altaro, a Malta-based company that recently made its official entry into the North American market, has launched a program for managed service providers. The Altaro VM Backup for MSPs program provides a subscription-based pricing model and access to Altaro’s Cloud Management Console management platform. Altaro is also highlighting that it has hit the 6,000 partner mark overall, with 1,500 of those being in North America.
Altaro, which started operations in 2009, has a couple of differentiating factors from most of the market. First, they began as an alternative for the minority of the market that used the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor, and while their flagship Altaro VM Backup has supported VMware as well in its last two main releases, the customer base still has a strong Hyper-V bias. The other differentiator is that Altaro is exclusively focused on the SMB space, and is priced for that market.
“We are very partner-focused, and all about the channel,” said Stephen Chetcuti Bonaviti, Altaro’s Co-Founder and VP of Sales and Marketing. “We have now reached the point where we have hit a milestone of 6,000 registered partners, with 1,500 of those in North America. We are now 100 per cent channel in Europe. In the Americas, we are at 70 per cent of revenue being channel, and the goal is to get to 100 per cent there in the coming months.”
“When I joined the company last year we were just shy of 50 per cent channel in North America,” said Eric Krauss, Altaro’s vice president of sales for the Americas. “The goal is 100 per cent, but that wont happen overnight. We are, however, adding sales, customer service and support staff for the channel to improve response time.”
The MSP program has been in beta since September 2016.
“The beta launched to just a select few partners, but in the first six months, 300 MSPs have signed up, and 40 to 50 new ones are signing up every month,” Chetcuti Bonaviti said. “A lot of these are our own traditional partners, who also have a managed services practice.”
While Altaro also now supports VMware, most of their install base remains Hyper-V focused, as are the majority of new partners, and that is consistent with the nascent MSP business.
“At the moment, the MSP business is following about the same percentage as the legacy business,” Chetcuti Bonaviti said. “VMware has slowly moved from about ten per cent of the total business up to 15 to 20 per cent, because we are reaching out to more partners.”
Like their traditional software, the pricing for MSPs is pegged to cost partners less than the typical market price.
“MSPs pay $5 per VM, per month, which is one of the best prices in the market,” Chetcuti Bonaviti said. “There is a minimum of only 10 VMs per month, while the industry average is typically 50. There are also no set-up fees. We tried to take all of that stuff out.”
The Altaro Cloud Management Console also went into beta last September, and like the MSP program, is officially launching today. It can also be used by regular partners, but is seen as indispensable for the MSP ones.
“The cloud console is pivotal to MSPs, and is provided at no change,” Krauss said. “It is fully multi-tenanted, and provides a single pane of glass to allow them to manage licenses.” The backup templates allow partners to set up schedules, set retention policies and advanced settings, and assign them to a large number of VMs across different Hosts. The console can be accessed from anywhere through a Web browser.
