Carbonite is betting its entire midmarket data protection storage portfolio -- cloud services, appliances and more -- on partners, and will not sell direct in the midmarket sector, according to CEO Mohamad Ali.
"In terms of the split between direct and partner, our entire midmarket portfolio -- across EVault and DoubleTake -- that's all going through partners," Ali said during Carbonite's earnings call yesterday. "That's 100 percent of it going through partners."
Carbonite acquired EVault in 2015 and DoubleTake in 2017. EVault’s technology includes a line of highly scalable appliances and advanced disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) capabilities. DoubleTake specializes in high-availability, disaster recovery, failover and migration software. The company also continues to sell Carbonite backup to consumers and very small business via automated self-service sales over the web, Ali said.
Carbonite Revenue Results: Q1 2017
Still, EVault and DoubleTake are Carbonite's big focus areas. Both acquisitions have paid immediate dividends. Indeed, Carbonite's revenue for Q1 2017 was $57.1 million, up 19% from $48.1 million in the first quarter of 2016, the company said yesterday.
Seeking to build on that momentum, Channel Chief Jon Whitlock is focused on "One Carbonite" -- which will include a single portal by which partners can discover, sell and manage all of the company's solutions. "We're also moving towards one sales -- one channel account management force that'll engage these partners with the entire suite," Ali said. "We're not quite there yet. We have a variety of piece parts we're putting together." All of the pieces will come together this year.
Whitlock provided additional updates about the partner program strategy in a recent ChannelE2E podcast. Whitlock is a Kaspersky Lab veteran who has extensive experience across sales, marketing and partner programs that involve data protection and security.
Carbonite Momentum, Challenges
No doubt, Carbonite has momentum. But the company must also remain nimble amid intensifying competition and continued market shifts involving cloud, mobile, compliance, security and private considerations.
Plus, Carbonite will need to maintain mind share as thousands of customers, partners and MSPs head to conferences hosted by business continuity companies in the weeks ahead. A few examples:
- Rival Datto is gradually moving up from the SMB sector to promote data protection solutions across storage, networking and unified threat management. DattoCon17, the company's major gathering of MSPs, is set for June in Denver.
- Another potential rival, Zerto, will host the ZertoCon 2017 conference in Boston -- also Carbonite's home town -- later this month.
- Plus, VeeamOn 17 -- a massive gathering of Veeam backup experts -- is less than two weeks away.
Despite all that competition, Ali has Carbonite in midmarket growth mode. Next up: One Carbonite.
