Datastor Joins Acronis Distributor List

Storage and disaster recovery vendor, Acronis, will set up its first Australian office next month and aims to sign new 100 resellers by the end of the year.

Since 2003, Acronis has been selling into the local consumer space through Queensland-based distributor, Manaccom. This year, it plans to double in size by moving into the enterprise space. To achieve this, Acronis has appointed Datastor as its second distributor and will set up a local presence in Sydney.

It has also earmarked a national reseller program, along with a telesales and support team to generate leads.

"The intention is to create a relationship with resellers through our distributors and spread the business across the board," country manager, Ian Tan, said.

Partners will be recruited from Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and will focus on companies ranging from small businesses through to organisations with 500 or more users.

Tan said resellers would need experience in back-up recovery and storage as well as consultancy skills.

Manaccom and Datastor will manage the majority of resellers directly, with Acronis having personal relationships with a select few. The partner program will be two tiered, based on the reseller's size and the size of their clients. Training, an incentive program and product discounts will also be available.

According to Tan, the telesales team will generate leads that will be passed on to the resellers. Small sales of up to three licenses will be sold directly by Acronis online.

With Symantec and StorageCraft its two most notable competitors, Acronishas a challenge ahead, Tan said.

"We want people to recognise our name so we need to work on increasing our brand presence," he said. "Acronis tripled its [US] revenue to $US50 million in one year since focusing on the enterprise market. By creating a relationship with resellers targeting the corporate enterprise space we can do that locally."