CommVault bulks up channel support for Simpana |
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By Dave Raffo, Senior News Director
23 Mar 2009 | SearchStorageChannel.com |
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CommVault will offer its reseller and OEM partners a subscription-based program to enhance sales and customer support without requiring their employees to pursue certification.
CommValue opens CommVault's Technical Resource Library, Knowledge Base and Education Services for its Simpana suite of data protection software to its channel partners and VARs. CommVault will make CommValue live April 1 in North America and launch it in Europe and Australia in May.
The program gives CommVault channel partners access to a knowledgebase to train engineers to use Simpana, and best practices as CommVault rolls out new features. It also helps the partners connect quickly with CommVault subject matter experts and engineers.
Robert Brower, CommVault's vice president for professional services and support for the Americas, said the program saves resellers from having to undergo special training for certification.
"I was a reseller and I used to resent the heck out of a vendor saying you had to go take classes to get certified," Brower said. "You had to go from a seller to a class taker."
He also said CommValue lets resellers get information without bringing their engineers and sales reps out of the field.
"A partner can click into the portal and there's a demonstration facility where a dedicated CommVault engineer can go through a demonstration," he said. "If I'm reseller, I don't have to bring somebody out of the field to go to a demo."
Although CommValue is offered to enterprises, Steve Satterwhite, CEO of Houston-based services consultant company Entelligence, says the program will be especially beneficial for smaller firms like his.
"Most manufacturers don't have this type of program to help the smaller guy," he said. "They only pay attention to their premium partners. Smaller service organizations are usually spread thin. This provides the kind of resources from presales through services delivery that we might offer if we were a CDW-type reseller organization. This program puts those details at our fingertips."
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