Rackspace Signs onto Arrow's ArrowSphere Cloud Platform

Rackspace (RAX) is expanding its presence in the channel with a new distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics (ARW), which has added Rackspace’s managed cloud offerings to its ArrowSphere platform. The agreement will expand Rackspace’s reach in both the United States and Canada.

Arrow’s solution provider customers now can join the Rackspace reseller program to get volume discounts, pre- and post-sales support, and access to help desk and financing services.

For Rackspace, the deal puts its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud offerings in front of a potentially large base of new channel partners taking its services to end user customers.

“Our agreement with Arrow represents a key strategic move extending the value of Rackspace’s managed cloud offering deep into the enterprise segment,” said Todd Cione, senior vice president of America Sales at Rackspace, in a prepared statement. “Through our shared emphasis on delivering specialized expertise, this collaboration with Arrow will allow us to extend the reach of our Fanatical Support to leading solution providers within the United States and Canadian market, and eventually expand on a global scale.”

It looks as though Rackspace has big plans for future expansion for its services. Included in the Arrow distribution deal are various elements of the Rackspace managed cloud portfolio, including public multi-tenant, private and dedicated single-tenant cloud servers, data stores, ecommerce, digital marketing and VMware-powered solutions.

“Rackspace gives us another strong anchor and their focus on managed cloud enables us to work more effectively with us,” said Dee Dee Lear, vice president of cloud for Arrow ECS North America, in an interview with Talkin’ Cloud.

As partners continue to open their eyes to the future of their businesses, they are finding it increasingly more appealing to get into reselling infrastructure. Through Arrow, some of that comes from IBM SoftLayer, but with Rackspace—and also recently, Oracle—being added to the mix, the range of cloud infrastructure offerings and other cloud services is growing.