Mozy Unveils Enterprise Edition, Strengthens Channel Program

Cloud storage service provider Mozy on Tuesday signaled a significant push towards the business side of the market with the unveiling of an enterprise-focused version of its service and a new channel program.

The new channel program includes Mozy's first deal registration and lead generation offerings, said Darrell Gamble, director of channel sales for the Seattle-based company.

While Mozy has had a channel portal since 2006, it was not really useful for solution providers, making it important to shift towards a more partner-oriented stance, Gamble admitted.

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"I'm really excited about the shift," he said. "This lets us scale our business. After July of 2011, we saw the hockey stick rise in our channel sales. It shows that our investment in the channel is the right one."

Mozy is for the first time segmenting its solution providers into three levels. These include the silver level for partners who sell a minimum of $100 of Mozy services per month, the gold level for those who sell $500 per month, and the platinum level for those who sell $1,000 per month, Gamble said.

Those at the platinum level are eligible for bonus margins for registering potential deals as a way to offset the cost of developing customer interest in its offering, Gamble said.

Mozy is also asking potential customers who contact the company directly if they would want to work with a platinum level partner, he said.

"Our job on the phone is to sell the value of working with the partner," he said. "We don't sell backup. We sell restore. We tell potential customers that if they work with a local partner, they will get installation and configuration help, assurance that backup sets are correctly set up, monitoring of backups to ensure they are successful, and partner help with setting rights and privileges."

Mozy is also offering partners co-branded marketing collateral to help them sell the service, as well as new technical and sales opportunities, Gamble said.

The new channel program comes just a couple months after Mozy refocused its sales from direct-to-consumer to the channel, Gamble said.

"As of last July, our reps dealt with both direct customers and resellers," he said. "But we realized this was not providing the proper focus. So we split the teams. Before January 1 of 2012, our direct sales team was the bigger of the two. But after January 1, 75 percent of our sales reps became channel sales reps."

Next: Mozy Enterprise Integrates Microsoft Windows Active Directory

Mozy on Tuesday also unveiled Mozy Enterprise, a new more advanced version of its Mozy cloud storage service targeting larger businesses for the first time, Gamble said.

Mozy Enterprise, about 99 percent of which will be sold through channel partners, is targeting a subset of users who have their own IT staff and who want to do more management of their cloud storage on their own, he said.

Mozy Enterprise is targeting companies looking at how to ensure corporate data on users' mobile devices is properly protected. It includes integration with Microsoft's Active Directory technology to ensure that multiple types of devices operate correctly in the business environment, Gamble said.

Mozy Enterprise also includes enhanced reporting tools and the ability to set up sub-administrators for user groups, as well as tools for helping companies set up corporate governance and control, he said.

A later version of Mozy Enterprise is slated to also include Mozy Stash, a technology for storing and accessing files on-line without going through the backup and restore process.

Larry Velez, CTO and founder of Sinu, a New York-based MSP that sells the Mozy service as part of its overall services portfolio, said Mozy's deal registration offering is important for his company's push to develop new business.

"We invest a lot as a partner in introducing our solution," Velez said. "We hate it when someone comes in to a customer and sells Mozy as a stand-alone feature while comparing it to our full service offering. It's comparing apples to oranges. That waste everybody's time. Deal registration makes everything easier for everyone."

Velez said Mozy Enterprise, which his company beta tested, has features that will help work with larger customers.

"I liked the ability to control how settings are managed," he said. "We have a lot of Mozy agents installed. It's good to manage them as groups."

Integration with Windows Active Directory is also important when dealing with larger clients, Velez said.

"Active Directory is really a measuring stick as to when something is enterprise-ready," he said. "We have clients who refuse to use any application that is not integrated into Active Directory. We need the ability to manage hundreds of Active Directories with tens of thousands of seats. About 20 percent of our time is spent managing credentials."

EMC, which acquired Mozy in 2007, last year transferred Mozy to VMware, also owned by EMC, as a way to take advantage of both companies' virtualization and cloud technologies.