CRN Exclusive: Wireless Provider Mojo Networks Launches New Partner Program, Alliance With Ingram Micro

Cloud-based wireless specialist Mojo Networks, formerly AirTight Networks, is launching a new partner program offering 20 percent margins, and is also embarking upon a new alliance with distributor Ingram Micro to drive channel sales.

"If you believe in the cloud, believe in a vendor that's small enough to continue to innovate in wireless and who's building a culture around the channel, as you can see in our channel investments, it's a good time to move to Mojo," said Kester Kyrie, Mojo's channel chief and vice president of worldwide sales and channels.

With a new revamped channel effort, Mojo is now actively seeking to onboard new cloud and wireless partners who have existing partnerships with larger competitors that Kyrie feels are over-distributed in the market.

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"We think there's an opportunity with several of our competitors who are now extremely over-distributed with all the acquisitions [in the market], as well as partners who want to go back to working with a smaller, more responsive wireless company," said Kyrie. "We're going to go after select partners that believe in the cloud and believe it's the future of wireless."

The Mountain View, Calif.-based vendor's new partner program, Mojo Force, is a two-tier program providing real-time collaboration with Mojo sales teams, a new partner portal and a guaranteed partner response within 24 hours, according to the company.

"We try to drive consistent margins in the 20 percent gross margin range with deal registration for partners," said Kyrie. "On top of that, we're announcing some aggressive pricing to the end user."

"We've also created this interactive partner portal from scratch that's easy to use, with fast response," he said. "You can do your deal registration there, you can track your deal registration, it's full of content, and you can engage with specific reps by just putting in your ZIP code."

Mike Finch, president and CEO of Las Vegas-based Alliance Telecom Corp., a solution provider and Mojo partner, is expecting the new program to increase Mojo sales and drive profitability for his company.

"Healthy protected margins for approved registered opportunities and Mojo rep responsiveness help drive sales and active engagement with my team," said Finch. "They're operating much like a startup -- very efficient process throughout the sales cycle."

Mojo sales for Alliance Telecom have increased more than 45 percent year over year, according to Finch, largely because of Mojo's business analytics capabilities.

Mojo Force consists of two levels: Authorized, for any partners who sign up, and Platinum, achieved through total revenue and sales.

The company is striving to drive 100 percent of its sales through the channel. Kyrie said Mojo is focusing on moving any direct business to resellers tied with better partner support through its new partnership with Irvine, Calif.-based Ingram Micro.

Mojo provides a suite of cloud-first access, security and engagement capabilities, focusing on Wi-Fi infrastructure that can scale up to thousands of users. Last month, Mojo unveiled a new high-performance 802.11ac Wave 2 access point, Mojo C120, which includes a feature set specifically designed to support K-12 schools, university campus environments, distributed enterprise and large merchandise retailers.

One target area for Mojo is cloud managed Wi-Fi, which research firm IDC says will become a $1.7 billion market by 2018.

"We're looking for partners who are interested in delivering a managed service for their customers," said Kyrie. "I'm starting to see a trend in not just traditional service providers, but also for the traditional VAR. They're looking for ways to change their business, and developing these managed service offerings is the way to increase their margin and profitability."

Kyrie said Mojo is starting to see more traction and wins in the enterprise because of its simplicity of deployment and customers' not having to manage many controllers.

"We're hoping we'll get more and more VARs that have traditionally sold the larger vendors," he said. "We're hoping to attract [those] that sell into large universities, enterprises, schools and hospitality."