Avnet Technology Solutions (NYSE: AVT) has deepened its presence in the cloud with the launch of Avnet Cloud Solutions, a dedicated group within the distributor focused on developing and delivering integrated and packaged off-premise cloud computing solutions delivered by partners on an annuity basis.
Based on market research around what cloud solutions are most in-demand through an off-premise model, the initial offerings available through Avnet will be focused around productivity and collaboration, backup and recovery, test and development, security, application hosting and management, remote management and monitoring, and data centre as a service.
The new group and offerings build on the work Avnet has already been doing around the delivery of virtualization solutions and an agile data centre with on-premise private clouds said Tim FitzGerald, vice-president of the cloud solutions group with Avnet Technology Solutions (Americas).
“We believe the market is moving toward hybrid solutions and will expect strong foundational knowledge from the channel in both on-premise and off-premise solutions,” said FitzGerald.
Avnet has partnered with cloud and managed services provider Savvis to host and deliver the offerings, which will be augmented with Avnet intellectual property and support, and packaged to be easily deliverable by partners.
FitzGerald said Avnet decided to work with Savvis because of its experience as a cloud provider delivering enterprise-class solutions, as well as its experience with security management and governance. He added they also wanted to build a model where VARs will be in the lead.
“Many cloud providers today have direct relationships with customers, paying referral fees to the channel,” said FitzGerald. “We wanted to make sure whatever partnership we brought to the table was thoroughly vetted.”
While he thinks the margins are attractive, FitzGerald said to be successful in the cloud partners need to have specific capabilities that not all partners may not have today. This is where Avnet’s SolutionsPath program can help partners raise their competencies.
As a distributor, FitzGerald said Avnet’s role in a cloud computing world is to “accelerate the success of our partners that have made a strategic decision to be more valuable to their customers by focusing on cloud computing.” He added that, with their cloud solutions program, Avnet aims to help partners add size and scale to their cloud business.
He added more cloud-based solutions, customized further with Avnet intellectual property, are on the way.
“It will be a busy second half of 2012 for us,” said FitzGerald.
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