U.K.-based Flexxible is growing its presence in North America, and is also introducing their first partner program for North American partners at the Citrix Summit event.
At the Citrix Summit in Anaheim, Flexxible IT has announced the launch of their new Flexxible | SmartWorkspaces for Citrix Cloud, which is verified as a Citrix Ready HCI Workspace Appliance. The appliance delivers ready-to-use virtual workspaces powered by Citrix Cloud and XenServer. It also provides multi-tenant and multi-environment cloud console management, through a single pane of glass.
“This is a fantastic technology which is very flexible,” said Sebastian Prat, Flexxible IT’s CEO. “It has several unique features.”
Prat said that the most significant of these is their new Flexxible|Hawk.
“It allows management of multiple client and within each client, multiple environments,” he said. “You can manage the entire enterprise cloud infrastructure in a single pane of glass.” Hosted in Microsoft Azure, Flexxible|Hawk also extends Citrix Studio capabilities to support multiple global locations, and lets the operations team schedule and manage updates.
“These multi-tenancy and multi-environment features are new features in this space that the market requires,” said Pedro Beitra, Flexxible IT’s VP of WorldWide Sales. “Resellers can also use Citrix consoles, which makes things easy for them.”
“We have been developing for a Citrix cloud solution for many years,” Beitra added. “This appliance also acts as an on-premise resource for Citrix cloud.
“We have also added a storage-agnostic concept,” Prat indicated. The appliance has two storage options –fast all-flash storage provided by the appliance, or utilizing the user’s existing network storage.
“They can use their own existing network storage to reduces their total cost of ownership,” Prat said.
Flexxible|SmartWorkspaces for Citrix Cloud is based on Citrix XenServer.
“XenServer gives us more user density, and also XenServer is included in Citrix cloud licensing,” Prat noted.
Last spring, at Citrix’s Synergy customer event, Flexxible launched an SMB-focused hybrid cloud virtual workspace appliance. The SMB focus was also a departure for the company, which like Citrix, has its strength in the enterprise. Flexxible|SmartWorkspaces for Citrix Cloud is being aimed out of the gate at a very broad audience – which the company is saying is audiences of any size. While Flexxible IT has a lot of experience working with service providers, and the multi-tenancy features of the new product would seem to make it a natural fit for them and MSPs, Prat said that the initial broad definition of the market comes because the company really isn’t sure yet where the demand will come from.
“We have been working on this for a while, because Citrix Cloud is not a new service, and we have prepared a solution that will attack any size of company,” he said. “There is no clear market now for this kind of product. We will find out in the next few months what the market will be for this kind of technology.”
The appliance is available now.
When they introduced their SMB appliance at Synergy last year, U.K-based Flexxible also used the event to make their first major foray into the North American market. They opened a U.S.-based office in Fort Lauderdale, and hired Jim Airdo, who had been Vice President of Global Channel Sales at Appsense, to run the North American operation. This year, the new product launch at a Citrix show also has a strong tie-in to the North American market, as Flexxible has launched their first partner program for their resellers in North America. The company sells entirely through partners, and has a well-established partner program in Europe. However, they launched the appliance last year with a comparatively limited channel in North America, in order to identify a cadre of key go-to-market partners
“We have been very successful in setting up our channel network, and we are ready to grow it, and so are now establishing officially our channel program in the U.S.,” Beitra said.
The Flexxible IT Authorized Partner Program starts out as a single-tier program. The plan is to expand the tiering as the program grows. Sales benefits include deal registration, sales training, account support and business planning and quarterly reviews. Technical benefits include training, a demo environment, and access to expert technical support. Marketing assistance is also provided and includes invites to join Flexxible IT at select events for lead generation purposes.
Flexxible IT wants partner investment in the relationship as well. They require certification of two sales professionals and two technical engineers. Three demand generation activities per year are also required. Program membership runs for 12 months with an annual renewal, and Flexxible IT proactively reviews partner performance.
