Two-year old Embotics, an Ottawa-based Virtualization Lifecycle Management vendor, is looking to further extend its market reach in Canada and beyond by seeking out new channel partners.
Founded in 2006, Embotics released its flagship product, V-Commander, a centralized policy-based virtual machine (VM) lifecycle management software solution last September. Two months later, the solution became generally available. This summer, Embotics released version two of the solution and last week introduced V-Scout, a free insight tool that allows IT administrators to have complete control and visibility over their virtual environment.
David Lynch, vice-president of marketing at Embotics, said the company, which does business primarily in North America, also conducts some of its business in Europe. He noted Embotics’ business flows entirely though the channel, and said the company introduced its Embotics Partner Program for value-added resellers (VARs), technology alliance partners, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and solution providers, just seven months ago. The multi-tiered program allows partners to receive discounts, free training, leads, marketing and sales support.
“We also have a small direct sales force,” Lynch said, “but because we’re 100 per cent channel, our sales force is there to help our channel get off the ground and to help them with leads and calls.”
Currently, Lynch says the company has about 12 to 14 channel partners worldwide. Two of them are in Europe he says, and the remaining 10 to 12 are in North America. At least one of those he says, naming Zentra Technologies, is a Canadian-based VAR.
V-Commander, Lynch explains, is a software solution that runs on a VMware (NASDAQ: VMW) server. He says next year though, the solution will also be compatible to work with VMware, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) platforms. V-Commander is a centralized policy-driven solution that’s agent-less and provides administrators with insight into virtual machines within the company’s infrastructure.
“Once you have insight, administrators can then identify what policies are needed in their environment to take control,” Lynch said. “The solution helps control virtual sprawl by monitoring machines throughout their lifecycles.”
Last week, the company announced the availability of V-Scout, a centralized tool available to VMware end-users as a free download that works on the V-Commander platform.
“We found customers were using manual tracking systems to manage their virtual machines,” Lynch said. “This posed a challenge since this takes time and sometimes things can get out of whack on a spreadsheet. By using V-Scout and V-Commander, customers see the benefits of a control automation integration tool that also provides them with insight.”
The starting price of V-Commander, Lynch says, is $10,000, depending on the number of hosts. With the solution, Lynch said partners can add-on a variety of services on top of what V-Commander already has to offer. Partners should expect to see about a 5:1 ratio between services and products when they deploy V-Commander, he said. On the software solution itself, partners can see up to double digit margins as well.
A goal for the company moving forward is to extend its partner community by adding on new partners that have expertise in the virtualization, professional services and mid to large enterprise space.
“We’re looking for folks who want to expand their product portfolio and technological offerings and who want to differentiate themselves in the market,” Lynch said. “We provide tools and the technology that help partners engage deeper with their customers so they can talk about policy sets, reports and control policies.”
Lynch said Embotics is currently in the process of expanding out in the Canadian West and also in the Toronto area. While V-Commander is a solution that works well across pretty much all vertical markets, Lynch says a goal for the company next year is to gain a better hold in the government sector space.