Hank Humphreys - Head of Global Channel Sales, Dropbox
Ingram Micro has expanded its distribution agreement with Cloud-based storage vendor, Dropbox to sign an exclusive deal in A/NZ.
Representing an extension of the agreement the two companies forged in the U.S. and Canada, the new agreement gives Ingram Micro channel partners across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand access to the DropBox for business portfolio.
Both parties plan to extend the offering into additional markets with Hank Humphreys, head of global channel sales, saying the local region will represent a springboard into other markets in Asia-Pacific.
“We are very close on agreements in Hong Kong, Singapore and India," he told ARN. "Those will be the first key markets we will be targeting.
"International expansion is very important because over 70 per cent of our core users are outside the US and A/NZ has a large amount of users. These are users who are beginning to bring our product into the workplace.”
At present, DropBox has 500 million personal users of the product worldwide, with eight million businesses using its Cloud storage platform.
Terms of the deal will see Ingram Micro make the platform available on its Cloud marketplace in Australia in April with local General Manager, Lee Welch, explaining that distributor’s Cloud marketplace in Australia is the second highest in terms of adoption outside the US.
“DropBox is becoming one of the most prevalent Cloud offerings because you have such a large install base across the region and for us it’s now about working with our partners to monetise that," he said.
In addition, Humphries said another factor that will boost channel adoption of the platform, besides the existing install base, is the collaborative aspects added to the product and integrations with offerings from other vendors such as Microsoft.
For Welch, such adoption and brand recognition will help partners not currently selling Cloud to add DropBox to existing offerings.
"Partners can sell a service into their customer base and then add additional services over time," he added.
“We have business solution bundles available on the marketplace and DropBox is now being incorporated into those solution bundles.”
More to follow...
