Moses Mathuram has responsibility for strategy involving all types of TmaxSoft partners, but thinks the reseller channel in particular can be leveraged better, and that adding distribution is a way to do it.
Moses Mathuram, Vice President of Global Channels and Partnerships at TmaxSoft
TmaxSoft, which originated in South Korea, but moved their head offices to Chicago in 2016, has announced the appointment of Moses Mathuram as the company’s first Vice President of Global Channels and Partnerships. Mathuram, who owns the company’s overall channel strategy, plan, and route-to-market, has responsibility for enhancing and developing TmaxSoft’s global networks and alliances. He also believes that he has a lot of work to do.
TmaxSoft entered the North American market in a serious way about three years ago. At that time, they positioned themselves primarily as a database vendor, and their strategy here was to offer feature parity with Oracle, but be cheaper and easier to do business with. Since then, they have broadened out their value proposition.
“We are better positioned now, and are a better well-rounded, enterprise software play,” Mathuram said. “In North America, we see maximum traction in helping customers out of legacy environments like IBM mainframes, which remain usable, but how useful they will be in the business of the future is anybody’s guess. Our OpenFrame mainframe rehosting solution lets them move away from the mainframe, and we host it in a more modernized environment.”
Mathuram said that TmaxSoft will continue to broaden its solution set.
“We are not just a database software company, but make enterprise software that is aimed at helping customers modernize,” he stated. “We want to be able to support enterprise customers strongly, and are building out a new set of tools which we will be launching this year, particularly those aimed at business on the cloud.”
Mathuram said that TmaxSoft has had some outstanding successes in the past two quarters, but that the most important element in their expansion will be to better leverage a partner network.
“That is the key for us,” he said. “We want to position ourselves as a zero-complication partner, and who can help partners understand the true value of the database. We are open for any model with partners. We want to be able to help our partners deliver value.”
Mathuram’s role covers all types of partners. He has managed partner types broadly in the past, most recently as Associate Vice President of Global Alliances for Infosys, and earlier in alliance leadership positions with IBM and Computer Associates.
“We divide them into a few categories, from consulting partners and SIs who work very closely with customers, to the cloud providers like AWS and Azure, to the private cloud providers like Rackspace,” he said. “We will work with leading ISVs like VMware and IBM. We want to work closely with all of these partner types and make sure we can leverage many models.”
Mathuram said that significant improvement needs to be done with their solution provider channel.
“We have to expand there,” he said. “We have been working with a very limited set of resellers so far, It makes sense for us to expand our reach there through the distribution channel, and I have been looking at distributors like Tech Data with whom I have worked in the past.”
TmaxSoft does not have a true partner program in place, and Mathuram said that this will be a necessity to manage channel of resellers through distribution.
“We don’t have a detailed program in place, and that’s a priority,” he said. “We need a global partner program which touches all the kind of partners that we have, especially given that the model of engagement with partners is very different in each region. Such a program will let them take a flawless solution to their customers.
“We want to make the process very, very easy,” Mathuram added. “We want to make sure our partners are rewarded very well, and can create differentiation over everybody else. They will have access to MDF funds to work with our local teams and create local campaigns.”
A certification program will be part of the new system.
“Certification is more about deeper engagement, which is especially valuable for systems integrators,” Mathuram said. “We want them to be highly skilled around products like OpenFrame. We want the channel to understand that we bring a deep technical experience to the table.”
Mathuram said that these programs should be rolled out in the next quarter or so.
“The launch of a partner portal will take an additional quarter,” he noted.
