Just about a year after launching its small business products, Carbonite Inc., a provider of online backup solutions for home users and SMBs, rolled out its new Carbonite Reseller Program. The new program opens Carbonite’s complete line of home and business solutions to its partners, which includes Home, HomePlus, and HomePremier for home/home office users, and Business and BusinessPremier for SMBs. Previously, the reseller program encompassed just the home product line. All of the solutions include Carbonite’s anytime anywhere access feature, enabling clients to access their backed-up content from any Web browser or via free apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, or BlackBerry devices.
“Clients are asking by name [for Carbonite]; our brand helps [resellers] sell it.” Dave Hauser, Director of Channel Programs,
Carbonite Inc.
In the home user online backup world, Boston-based Carbonite has brand recognition, says Pete Lamson, senior vice president, Carbonite Small Business and Channels. Resellers were telling Carbonite that their clients were asking for it “by name. We spend a fair amount on advertising,” he says, adding, “We’ve chosen a disruptive price point to penetrate the market.”
Carbonite has more than 1,800 resellers selling the home products, says Dave Hauser, director of channel programs at Carbonite. “Since we launched the new [business] products we’ve had demand from resellers to sell the whole suite.”
Resellers can access an online platform with new account management tools. They will also have a dedicated account management team and a dedicated senior Carbonite customer support team.
Key features of the platform include:
- Full utility to search for client accounts and view account details, purchase history, storage utilization, and contact information
- Ability to add storage and renew subscriptions for customers
- Ability to upgrade customers to a higher plan
- Weekly email status alerts that notify the reseller of client accounts that need attention
“The cloud growth rate is having a huge impact on resellers. The market and model are changing, moving from a hardware sales model to a more services model. Carbonite is positioned well in this world; our cloud solution is easy to deploy and manage,” says Hauser.
Ease of use is a key feature of the products and the resellers’ dashboard, which is a big selling point with partners, Hauser says. Also, by participating in the program, channel partners have a direct line to a U.S. based Tier 2 support team, he adds.
Using the new dashboard, resellers purchase one-, two-, or three-year subscriptions at a discount. The discount increases as purchase volume increases, he explains. The subscription can then be sold for whatever price point the reseller establishes with clients. “They can put it in a bundle, which is what the majority of them do, or sell it as a discrete service,” Hauser says.
The dashboard also allows resellers to identify accounts that need attention. For example, the reseller can receive alerts if a subscription is expiring, if a client is not backing up data because they have not been connected to the Internet for a period of time, or if a business product user is approaching a storage limit. If that’s the case, “the reseller can purchase incremental storage packs for them,” Hauser says.
While Carbonite previously had a reseller program for its home products, it was not a focus for the company. That has changed with the new business products and expansion of its channel program, Hauser says. The company is holding a series of webinars to familiarize resellers with the new platform and tools available.
In addition, “the Carbonite Reseller Program now includes a resource center within the Carbonite reseller dashboard,” says Hauser. “The resource center provides our authorized Carbonite resellers with co-marketing materials, such as co-branded email templates, and training materials, such as product guides, that will help [them] sell and manage their clients’ accounts. We also offer additional education materials such as webinars and white papers.”
Program offerings will continue to grow. According to Hauser, over the coming year the company will add marketing and training materials to the resource center and make improvements to the resource center itself.
