Stratus Technologies Brings Global Partner Program to the Masses

Availability solutions provider Stratus Technologies has launched its first ever global partner program, through which partners can access a more robust reseller portal and better sales and marketing assistance, in addition to having access to the company’s always-on solutions for enterprise software.

While Stratus has had in place smaller, regional programs for a number of years, this is the first time the company has put together a single program for all of its partners, the company noted. With the new program in place, Stratus hopes to be able to offer all of its partners a similar experience and unify their sales efforts, thus driving business for both resellers and the company as a whole.

“We now have a global program, it’s a consistent program all around the world in every market," said Susan Bailey, vice president of Sales and Services, Americas, in an interview with The VAR Guy. “While there is a lot of value in thinking locally, we also didn’t have quite the same consistency that allows you to scale.”

Stratus's reseller network will have the ability to sell the company’s full line of software and platform availability solutions for SMBs and large enterprises, which the company said include flexible availability solutions that run in physical, virtual and cloud environments on multiple operating systems. The idea is to prevent software downtime before it occurs so resellers can guarantee uninterrupted performance for their business customers.

Under the new partner program, Stratus will offer three partnership levels—Registered Partner, Silver and Gold—which include specific product information and updates, discounts and resources to members. While the structure of the program isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary in terms of partner programs, Bailey said Stratus’s program is different in that it was built heavily on the recommendations and input of its partners, with specific influence placed on an improved partner portal for education and training opportunities as well as additional sales and marketing assistance.

“I think what is going to make it strong and unique is the quality of our execution,” said Bailey. “We’ve spent an enormous amount of time rebuilding the partner portal, the learning management system, developing new training … We’ve done very specific things like enhancing demo capabilities and providing a lot of additional tools to our partners at no charge. I would say it’s less about the framework of the elements of the program and much more about the way we have invested and are implementing.”

Going forward, Stratus will focus on strategically growing its partner network and giving existing partners more opportunities for success within their respective markets, Bailey said. The company’s partner business is expected to grow in excess of 50 percent within the next two years as Stratus continues to focus more energy on its channel sales and enablement programs for the VAR community.

“Given the shift in how much of our business continues to go indirect and even more over time, this is an area that we thought was imperative that we have a robust, high-quality program,” said Bailey. “We’re relying on our partners to propel our growth both in the [Fibre Channel] server business and very significantly in software and cloud.”