Egnyte, NetApp Partner On Enterprise File Sharing, Synchronization

Egnyte on Tuesday said it has joined the NetApp partner program for service providers, meaning that NetApp's sales and channel teams will get compensated for selling the Egnyte services and as a result will open more opportunities for Egnyte's channel partners, said Barry Phillips, chief marketing officer of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.

Egnyte provides file sharing and synchronization services, Phillips said. However, unlike companies like Dropbox and Box.net, which provide their services only via a cloud, Egnyte offers its services via either a cloud or using on-premises storage infrastructures, Phillips said.

[Related: Dropbox For Business Launches With Single Sign-On For Improved Security ]

"Egnyte allows file sharing and synchronization without a cloud," he said. "About 45 percent to 47 percent of our customers are using both local storage and the cloud, while the rest are using a pure cloud solution."

With the new NetApp relationship, the Egnyte service now works in conjunction with NetApp's Clustered Ontap technology to provide massive storage infrastructures on which the service can be built, either for on-premises applications or in clouds that are based on NetApp storage, Phillips said.

Partnering with both NetApp and Egnyte has proved to be a successful combination, said Chris Kloes, vice president of sales and managed services at CMT, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based solution provider.

"Egnyte was introduced to us late last year by NetApp as a company with a solution that not only fits the needs of our customers but which is also easy to integrate," Kloes said. "The APIs between Egnyte and NetApp work well, so we can offer a pure cloud approach with Egnyte running on the NetApp platform."

Egnyte as a technology for enterprise file sharing and synchronization solves problems associated with compliance and corporate and IT governance issues, Kloes said.

"There are lots of companies who like working with Dropbox, Box.net, and Google Gmail, but find those services may not have the right governance capabilities," he said. "With the NetApp and Egnyte partnership, we bring customers a solution that meets their compliance requirements."

With the new NetApp relationship, Egnyte plans to recruit more NetApp partners, Phillips said.

"A lot of VARs traditionally focused on on-premises hardware and software," he said, "they need to figure out what to sell next. SaaS [software-as-a-service] is really lucrative for these VARs. But, they may struggle to make the transition to being a cloud or services provider. This is a great opportunity to leverage their NetApp business to cross the chasm."

PUBLISHED APRIL 23, 2013