HYCU extends the market reach for their backup solution designed specifically for Nutanix environments with this new reseller agreement, which will let Lenovo sell HYCU with their Nutanix solutions in a single sale.
Junelle Swan, VP Channels at HYCU
Boston-based HYCU, which makes a data backup, recovery and monitoring solution that is custom-built for Nutanix, has signed their first agreement with one of Nutanix’s key go-to-market vendors, which will further extend its reach. The agreement with Lenovo will see HYCU sold with Lenovo’s HX-branded Nutanix appliances, as a single transaction, by both Lenovo and its channel partners. All joint Lenovo and HYCU partners will be able to sell HYCU.
“We are really excited about the new partnership with Lenovo and the triangulation of the solution with Nutanix,” said Junelle Swan, VP Channels at HYCU. “It’s a global agreement.”
The new selling motion with Lenovo comes on the heels of a new sub-program HYCU announced a month ago that provides additional compensation for selling HYCU licenses in deals made through the Nutanix Velocity program, which Nutanix set up this spring principally to support its SMB-focused Lenovo business. HYCU provides additional margin rewards for including HYCU in those opportunities, as well as additional marketing dollars to partners in each region who make the most HYCU sales through the program.
The Lenovo reseller agreement is a natural evolution of this.
“We had already been meeting in the marketplace anyway,” Swan said. “As Lenovo builds out their Software and Solutions business under their Lenovo Data Center Group, they are looking to build out. That’s really why they are interested. Nutanix was also supportive of this, in addition to the joint reaching out that was taking place.”
This reseller agreement with Lenovo is something that HYCU does not have with Nutanix’s first, and other big OEM partner, Dell Technologies. Unlike Lenovo, Dell EMC has backup solutions of its own.
“We do sell HYCU for customers using Dell EMB XC systems that use Nutanix software,” said Subbiah Sundaram, HYCU’s VP of Products. “We just don’t have a formal resell agreement with Dell at this point like we now do with Lenovo. Dell has a variety of backup solutions in their portfolio, but we believe that customers will receive tremendous benefit from leveraging our solutions for the Nutanix led-data centre.”
One market Nutanix has seen as strong for the Lenovo HX series has been the upper SMB and the midmarket. While HYCU has been selling through Lenovo into the enterprise as well, Swan said that HYCU expects the Lenovo resell deal will enhance their sales in these areas.
“We see this as enhancing and increasing our leverage and reach into the greater midmarket,” she said. “We really are horizontal across customer segments. SMBs may also not already have a current legacy backup vendor.”
Nutanix also made a splash last week at their London .NEXT event with the announcement of the availability of Nutanix Xi Cloud Services, something that HYCU thinks will be significant to them as a Nutanix strategic partner.
“Nutanix Xi Cloud Services, especially the Leap service that provides Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service, is an excellent option for customers and we have heard a tremendous amount of interest from customers for it,” Sundaram said. “Nutanix clearly tells customers that Leap is a DRaaS and not a backup. Many of Nutanix’s customers have asked us to support Xi Leap and we believe we are very well positioned to support it as soon as Nutanix enables partners to be on the platform. HYCU and Nutanix Xi Leap are very complementary.”
