Today, hybrid cloud management solutions provider RackWare is making pair of related channel announcements. They have launched a new channel program, the RackWare PartnerConnect channel program. They have also announced the promotion of Colby Calonica, who had been VP of Sales, to Vice President of Global Sales, Channels and Alliances.

“The impetus for the change in the channel program was Colby, who has been with the company for about a year,” said Bryan Gobbett, CEO at RackWare. “He is very passionate about the channel. His energy level is off the charts. We are giving him full responsibility across the board for revenue and that includes the channel piece as well.”

RackWare sells through three channels. The first is three of the big five hyperscalers, from whom they buy direct.

“Hyperscalers and their premier partners are the ones we really want to go after,” Gobbett said. “We have really done well with Google since we got on Google Marketplace.”

The second is five of the big 12 GSIs, to whom they also sell direct.

“The GSIs have become more open to solutions like Rackware,” Gobbett stated. “It’s really only in the last year we have started signing them up. and that has been a huge plus.

The third channel is regional SIs, who are focused on lower enterprises and the midmarket, and who are an entirely separate group from the huge GSIs. Gobbett said that that third is just nudging north of 50, and is globally based, with Brazil and South America being particularly strong.

“They used to be focused on one big cloud buyers, but have moved with the market and are evolving to multiple clouds,” Gobbett said.

“Colby wants to prioritize our most efficient partners and give them what they need,” he added. “We want to be connected to the really productive partners in each of these groups.

“We are mainly a software company, and we have a hybrid platform with three use cases — assessment, migration, and disaster recovery,” he added.”We can move any server or container from any source to any target. and that is unique in the marketplace. Our software lets them protect their applications and make them mobile, which lets them take advantage of price and performance benefits in other clouds. In the past. moving data was a big effort and the ROI was not always there. We have really changed the game. We are seeing a lot of interest, including federal and public sector customers who are still in data centres but who want to use a cloud as a DR site for cloud to cloud DR recovery. It’s now mobility that’s coming to the fore and that’s what we enable.”

Gobbett said that the new channel program did not involve revolutionary changes from the old, but that its goals were somewhat different.

“The new program is not hugely differentiated. but we do see it as a first step in getting a better environment in place.” he stated. “We will evolve to better incenting partners with things like additional margins. In the short term, it’s more about improving access to resources. The last 6 to 8 months have seen both an upsurge in the market and the number of partners who want to be engaged. We are looking for the most productive of those.”

The new program has three tiers. Silver is the basic, and is typically for newer partners. They get access to RackWare‘s partner portal and resources,basic sales and marketing support, including access to marketing collateral, comprehensive entry-level product training and onboarding, and the opportunity to participate in co-marketing initiatives at the discretion of RackWare.Silver partners are also fully eligible for deal registration to protect leads and opportunities.

“We kind of had deal registration before, but it wasn’t set up as effectively as it needed to be,” Gobbett noted. “We have many partners who bid on the same deals.”

Gold Tier partners have met higher sales targets than Silver. They receive, in addition to all the Silver benefits, enhanced sales and marketing support, including lead generation assistance, access to more advanced training and certification programs, priority deal registration and lead distribution, co-marketing opportunities with RackWare, including joint webinars and events, eligibility for additional incentives and rewards, such as increased rebates, and a dedicated channel account manager for personalized support.

Platinum is the top tier. Besides all the lower tier benefits, they get premium sales and marketing support, including dedicated resources for joint campaigns, exclusive access to RackWare‘s most advanced training programs, including technical certifications, the highest priority for deal registration and lead distribution, strategic collaboration with RackWare on joint marketing campaigns and go-to-market strategies, the highest rebates and rewards, and invitation to exclusive partner events and advisory board participation. Platinum partners also get executive-level support and access to RackWare‘s executive team.

“The access to our executive team, which we had not had effectively before, is important,” Gobbett said. “When our CTO is on the line with a partner and a prospect, he can get their project over the line for them. So while we did this is a very unstructured way before, we have moved to having it be very structured”