Equinix Global Partner Program Focuses on Accelerating Cloud Adoption

Cloud interconnection and data center company Equinix launched its first global Channel Partner Program, designed to help partners expand their businesses and develop new revenue streams. The program also highlights the company’s efforts to build out its indirect channel business.

While the reselling aspect of the program is in keeping with many other partner programs in the channel, Equinix is looking to differentiate itself by creating multiple paths for partner success, most notably with the introduction of specific paths for referral partners and cloud technology platform partners.

Instead of simply reselling the company’s cloud services platform, solution providers have the option of joining as referral agents, which compensates partners for helping Equinix sign contracts with customers directly. Prior to the launch of its global partner program, referral partners were the bread and butter of Equinix’s partner business, according to Chris Rajiah, vice president of Channels at Equinix.

“In Equinix history the traditional partner program has been mostly centered around the referral piece,” said Rajiah, in an interview with The VAR Guy. “So the reseller piece [of the program] is new because as we looked at our customer base over the past year … what we realized is that there are a lot of partners who are buying it (Equinix solutions) to resell them.

“So what we have done as part of this launch is take a segment of our base who have previously just had a customer relationship with us and rebranded that group to be called partners … and are now giving them additional benefits,” he said.

Equinix also works with a number of cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services (AMZN) and NetApp (NTAP), which fulfill the role of cloud service partners. Rajiah said these relationships allow the company to bring well-known CSPs into its data centers and provide resellers with access to additional cloud applications for their portfolios.

Historically, Equinix sold directly to end users, but the company has been working on developing its indirect sales strategy for the past several years, according to Rajiah. While prior attempts to develop an indirect sales channel have been mostly unsuccessful, the company has redoubled its efforts to go indirect under the leadership of Pete Hayes, Equinix’s chief sales officer.

“This program represents one of the top strategic initiatives for Equinix,” said Hayes, in a statement. “We are empowering our channel partners to capitalize on the significant business opportunity to support their customers’ cloud transformation needs, and not only increase their ‘trusted advisor’ status but also make it easier for them to extend their services and increase wallet share by offering new services.”