Ingram Micro Cloud adds Dropbox Business on the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace for channel partners in the United Kingdom.
Through the Cloud Marketplace, channel partners can now purchase, configure, and manage Dropbox Business, a file sharing and collaboration service.
On one hand, it's another typical deal for the world's largest high tech distributor: another big-name vendor signs up to put Ingram's resources to work bringing them closer to the channel.
On the other hand, this is Cloud. Many experts argued there would be no room in Cloud for the massive distributors that took control of hardware and software in the pc era. They confidently predicted distributors would die off, the IT equivalent of dinosaurs that lumbered off into the sticky tar pits of rising volumes and dwindling profit margins.
Now it looks clear Big Distributors proved to more invincible and fleeter afoot than expected. Distributors discovered they could leverage their size and resources to become cloud aggregrators--no, even more than aggregators because they could afford to build their own platforms and offer parts of that platform under white label to their resellers.
For example, Ingram Micro is a master cloud service provider (mCSP), offering channel partners and professionals access to a global marketplace, expertise, solutions and enablement programs that empower organizations to configure, provision and manage cloud technologies.
Its Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace is an ecosystem of buyers, sellers, and solutions that enables channel partners to transform and grow their business by offering instant, online access to a wide array of innovative cloud solutions from a single online portal.
If you think about it, the important point about the Dropbox Business announcement is that it shows cloud industry affirmation for Ingram Micro's platform.
When a cloud company like Dropbox signs up with Ingram, it proves (despite some of the early nonsense predicting distributors would have no role in cloud) that the distribution model itself is still important. And it also proves that a cloud-born company like Dropbox believes even in a cloud era that it still needs a distributor like Ingram Micro as "a channel to the channel."
500 million people around the world already use Dropbox to access and share their files anytime, anywhere, on any device. Dropbox is a disruptor who has chewed up the traditional business model of personal storage. Now with 150,000 businesses on Dropbox Business, Dropbox wants to transform everyday workflows and entire industries.
Many businesses need customized, integrated solutions instead of the Dropbox you or I might use personally. For this, Dropbox needs an extensive network of partners to reach and satisfy a very wide business market.
“Through the Ingram Micro Ecosystem of Cloud, our channel partners have the ability to do more. We are excited to offer Dropbox alongside our existing services and provide channel partners and their customers a best-in-class cloud solution that speeds up collaboration and drives business growth,” says Apay Obang-Oyway, Director for Cloud Northern Europe, Ingram Micro Cloud [shown in photo at right].
He adds, “The Cloud Marketplace brings new levels of performance and speed, enabling channel partners to quickly build and deploy unique Dropbox Business offerings while gaining a significant competitive advantage in the cloud.”
Which is another way of saying that Ingram Micro is helping lots of new-to-cloud partners to make the transformation-- and Dropbox Business can be a door-opening offer--especially for small-medium enterprises.
Through the Cloud Marketplace, channel partners will soon be able to attach Dropbox to Microsoft Office 365 via Ingram Micro’s productivity suite, and deliver a secure, end-to-end solution that streamlines business communications and enhances productivity across industry verticals.
"Most of our partners are working with SMBs. The UK has 5.2 million SMBs and they are the fastest growing part of the economy. And when your SMB customer grows, you grow with them."
The biggest obstacle to adopting cloud, according to Obang-Oyway, is the reluctance of many partners to step into the future."Many partners are accustomed to their cash cow. They tell us 'We're still seeing the numbers...box shifting is working for us. Thank you.'"
"But when the market changes, it changes fast," he warns. The last time you want to be starting a learning curve is when it is desperate situation. In high tech, you have to not only be prepared to shift gears-- you also need to make sure your gear box is in place forwhen you need it.
And, of course, it is a land grab. If your competitors stake out the territory first, build their cloud credentials...it will make it harder for to get in the cloud market later.
For channel companies that do want to understand the transformation to cloud, Ingram Mico Cloud works closely with CompTIA who has an introductory course that covers each step of the process.
