Tech Data Simplifies Cloud Business for Partners

Solution providers are being asked to change to cloud businesses as Tech Data emphasizes its ability to package and "normalize" the various components of cloud offerings in a way which smaller partners cannot; the company is seeking to do this through its TDCloud business.

Tech Data announced its partnership with Collab9 last week, and this brings the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) to solution providers.

This move comes after the company began offering VMware vCloud hybrid cloud service to its partners earlier this month.

Tech Data has also been developing its plan to bring in such cloud services since the company's TDCloud business unit was created almost two years ago, according to the director of TDCloud and software services for the distributor, Bharath Natarajan.

The TDCloud services from Tech Data simplifies cloud services so that it is not necessary to deal with a vast number of vendors that are accessible to solution providers, Natarajan said. He stated: "We help reduce complexity. No one wants relationships with 60 to 70 different providers. You'd be managing invoices all day. Instead, we bring in the right complete solution."

In terms of billing, for example, some vendors provide all-you-can-consume pricing, whereas others bill on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis.

Natarajan said: "We normalize the expenses like no one else does. We can take the complexity out of the billing while building multivendor solutions and wrapping them together. Then, on the eighth day of every month, we send a single bill to partners for everything."

Btech is a Pasadena, California-based provider of cloud services including storage and managed security, and the president of that company, Lee Bird, is in favour of hearing more about such services offered by Tech Data.

Hewlett-Packard hardware is used by Btech to manage services using infrastructure provided to customers, but is beginning to migrate towards the cloud for those purposes.

Bird added: "So far, I've been most intrigued with VMware's hybrid cloud solution. A lot of our customers have virtual machines in their data centers, and often want to put them somewhere else, including the cloud. We can order that from Tech Data as an SKU. It's pretty cool that you can order the cloud as an SKU."

The packaging of cloud solutions allows Tech Data distributors to bring together the various parts required to develop a complete solution which can be used immediately by solution providers. Natarajan commented: "Things are changing so quickly. In two months, there could be a completely new solution coming."

He added that by collaborating with a distributor such as Tech Data means that software services, marketing services, financial services and consulting can be brought together for partners. Natarajan said: "We bring breadth to the market. We're not creating a new market. But when the cloud gets accepted, we come in and add breadth." (CY) Link