Double-Take beats Symantec and CA to punch with direct-touch DR cloud

News Will Garside 2010-03-16 11:29

Ian Masters, UK Sales and marketing director admits Double-Take will promote its service to partners of vendors who

There “could be” channel conflict but our cloud offering still offers value-add possibilities and recurring revenue from referrals, says Masters.

Disaster recovery heavyweight Double-Take Software (NASDAQ:DBTK) has launched its first direct-to-end user product with Double-Take Cloud, a cloud-based DR solution using Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) web services.

Double-Take, which holds a strong market position in the data backup, migration and recovery space due in part to agreements with HP and Dell, previously ran a 100 percent channel model, but will offer the new cloud service both directly and through referrals from channel partners.

With speculation that rival vendors Symantec (Veritas) (NASDAQ:SYMC) and CA (ARCserve) (NASDAQ:CA) are both working on similar offerings, Double-Take has beaten both to the punch and will be aggressively targeting the respective channel partners of each vendor with its innovative cloud offering.

Conflict

When asked if the offering should concern its 200 UK channel partners, Ian Masters, UK Sales and marketing director candidly says, “Yes, there could be some channel conflict,” adding that several partners had contacted him with their fears. But Masters is keen to stress, “[Double-Take Cloud] opens up a completely different part of the market, particularly the very small businesses that weren’t really thinking of a dedicated second site.”

Masters is also maintains the referral programme, which provides partners with a 10 percent recurring revenue stream with no support, maintenance or renewal requirements, is a low touch, SMB-focused, high volume sales opportunity.

Amazon

The firm choose to launch the service based on Amazon’s cloud due to a technical limitation that was addressed by Amazon at the end of last year. However, Masters confirmed that Amazon won’t necessarily be the only cloud that Double-Take will implement its platform on.

Unlike other wannabe clouds, the use of Amazon allows users of Double-Take Cloud to expand the number of servers under protection in an effectively limitless and rapid manner. In addition, the service also allows clients to benefit from a by-product of the service which makes potential migration from fixed infrastructure to full deployment into the cloud extremely easy.