Value-added cloud distributor Pax8 Inc. has forged a strategic alliance to add products from Datto Inc., of Norwalk, Conn., to its line card.
The deal enables partners of Pax8, which is based in Englewood, Colo., to buy and manage Datto’s appliance-based and cloud-to-cloud BDR solutions, as well as the networking solutions it introduced in January, through the same portal they use to acquire a wide range of other offerings, and enjoy consolidated billing for all those systems too. Pax8, which specializes in software-as-a-service applications, will fulfill the hardware portion of those orders in coordination with Datto.
The new partnership, which was unveiled on day one of Downers Grove, Ill.-based membership organization CompTIA‘s 2017 ChannelCon event in Austin, Texas, brings together two companies with a shared commitment to building deep, enduring relationships with resellers, according to Ryan Walsh, Pax8’s senior vice president of partner relations.
“They have great loyalty with their MSPs,” he says of Datto, which had some 6,400 partners worldwide as of its DattoCon conference in June and expects to add 2,500 this year.
Pricing on Datto solutions will be the same regardless of whether they’re purchased through distribution or directly from the manufacturer, Walsh continues.
“Whether you go through Datto or Pax8, it’s going to be the same,” he says. “We differentiate on our value proposition.”
That value proposition includes access to vendor-specific product experts, sales and marketing resources, and a recently added team of service delivery advisors tasked with helping channel pros ensure their customers deploy and benefit from the technology they’ve paid for.
“We don’t want somebody to buy something and not use it,” Walsh says.
Datto’s BDR products won’t be the first in that category offered by Pax8. The distributor already carries systems from Double-Take Software, which since early this year has been a division of Boston-based Carbonite Inc., and Infrascale Inc., of El Segundo, Calif. Adding Datto to the mix responds to feedback from partners looking for a wider range of data protection choices when bundling solutions for their customers.
“You need to find really good MSP oriented products, [but] if we have a few more options that’s going to better serve our base,” says Walsh, who adds that Pax8 is expanding its solution portfolio at a “faster clip” currently. In recent months, the company has begun offering endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication, and single sign-on solutions from Symantec Corp., of Mountain View Calif, as well as Kirkland, Wash.-based BitTitan Inc.‘s MigrationWiz cloud data migration solution.
Walsh emphasizes that while Pax8 plans to continue adding products and vendors to its catalog, it remains committed to offering a curated list of best-of-breed solutions per its long-running strategy for differentiating itself from larger broadline distributors like Ingram Micro Inc. and SYNNEX Corp.
“We’re going to do that very strategically,” he says. “We want to be effective at selling, marketing, and supporting the products that we have.”
ChannelCon continues through Wednesday.
