Acronis launches bi-annual partner survey
SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland, October 18, 2011 - Acronis Inc., a leading provider of disaster recovery and
data protection solutions for physical, virtual and cloud
environments, today announced the findings of its first EMEA
Partner survey.
The survey results reveal our EMEA partners' feedback on their
experience of working with Acronis and their vision for SMB
technology trends over the coming year. More than 1,200 of Acronis'
EMEA partners across 11 countries completed the survey in July and
August 2011.
One of the key findings is that the SMB storage software channel
sees virtualisation as the future of their businesses, ranking
virtualisation's potential for cost cutting and efficiency above
physical backup, the cloud and deduplication. As a result of cloud
and virtualisation, 49% of Acronis partners have shifted their
business model to become service providers and over a third (35%)
are now selling more software licenses than boxes.
There are, however, further opportunities for the channel to
embrace new technologies, with only a third (31%) currently seeing
the migration to virtualisation and cloud as presenting further
business opportunities for them.
Laurent
Dedenis, President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Acronis,
"In order to better address the channels' needs, we decided to run
a barometer to analyse our partner's satisfaction, perception and
vision. We will benchmark our community's satisfaction with the
recently introduced Acronis Global Partner Programme every six
months moving forward to make improvements for them."
"In addition, virtualisation is a key strategic focus for us
this year and we want to arm our channel with the products, tools
and support they need to help their customers implement
virtualisation solutions. This year we have launched both Acronis®
vmProtect™ 6 and Acronis
Backup & Recovery® 11 Virtual Edition. We are one of
the only backup and recovery companies following a true partner
model for the adoption of virtualisation."
Top 3 findings:
- Virtualisation is the top technology to help companies cut IT costs: Acronis continues its commitment to the virtualisation market in order to arm its channel with information, plus support them as their business models change
- Acronis partners are satisfied: More than three quarters (76%) indicated they are satisfied or very satisfied with Acronis. EMEA Partners expressed appreciation of tools made available to them (such as the Acronis Partner Portal, training programmes and free NFRs) in addition to joint communication activities (roadshows, events, customer case studies)
- When selecting a backup and recovery solution, the main priority for channel partners is technical support: Acronis was one of the first backup and recovery providers on the market to provide free and unlimited technical support to its channel partners, regardless of the partners' level
Acronis commitments to its partners:
- Improve partners' satisfaction Fully implementing the new Global Acronis Partner Programme which was announced in June
- Educate the market Support our partners' business model changes due to new technology adoption and provide best of breed technology for virtualisation backup
Resources:
About Acronis:
Acronis is a leader in AI-native cyber protection, unifying data protection, cybersecurity, IT operations and hybrid infrastructure to deliver business continuity, security and compliance with less cost and complexity. More than 21,000 service providers trust Acronis to protect over 750,000 businesses in 150 countries. Acronis is headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. For more information, visit www.acronis.com.