Dropbox Opens Partner Network to Overseas Partners

By TC Doyle

**Editor’s Note: Click here for a list of recent channel-program changes you should know.**

Nearly a year after creating a partner program to help third parties sell, manage and support Dropbox for Business, the brash public-cloud storage provider is expanding its Dropbox Partner Network to include international solution providers.

The latest move is part of Dropbox’s effort to increase the penetration of Dropbox for Business internationally, where 70 percent of its user base resides. Now, IT service providers in the European Union, Canada, Australia and New Zealand can join the Dropbox Partner Network, which provides tools and rewards to those who help promote the Dropbox service.

The benefit to joining is the ability to register for recurring margins that partners get for helping customers leverage Dropbox for Business, and access to the company’s partner portal, where partners can download resources to help them manage their customers’ usage. Since the company launched its partner program in the United States in June 2013, more than 750 partners have signed up. They range in size from small IT consultancies all the way up to large vendors, including Dell and Salesforce.com.

Customer usage, by the way, is growing astronomically. In an interview with Channel Partners, Adam Nelson, head of channel sales and partnerships at Dropbox, said that customers are putting 1 billion files onto Dropbox every day. Total users to date now number more than 275 million, he added — a growing number from the business world. Ninety-seven percent of the Fortune 500, for example, now use the service.

With the expansion of the partner network, and the 100,000 or so developers that are writing applications to Dropbox’s APIs to take advantage of the size of the ecosystem growing around the company’s service, partners have a unique opportunity to make money and increase their influence working with public clouds.

“We’ve had thousands of inbound requests from IT solutions providers in over 71 countries to expand our channel offerings. We are very excited to add new markets to the program,” said Nelson.

He added that Dropbox views its partners as “a vital extension of [its] sales team” and is eager to engage VARs and managed service providers who want to own their relationship with Dropbox customers and provide tier-one support in exchange for technical assistance and remuneration.