SwiftStack Hires New Sales VP, Plans To Expand Its Object Storage Business

SwiftStack, developer of a commercial version of the open-source Swift object storage technology, is looking to expand its customer and channel reach with the appointment of a new top sales exec.

Randall Jackson, the new vice president of sales for San Francisco-based SwiftStack, said he is looking forward to helping his company expand its business, both in the media and entertainment, life sciences, backup and archiving, and government clients it currently serves and in new areas.

Channel partners will be a big part of that expansion, Jackson told CRN. "We are working with partners to take us into more areas," he said. "The goal is to use the channel to drive our business in all areas."

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SwiftStack develops a commercial version of the open source Swift object storage technology that was developed for OpenStack cloud environments. It is available as a software stack that runs on commodity hardware, and runs in non-OpenStack environments, Jackson said.

"SwiftStack is a commercial product that provides enterprise features to the OpenStack Swift object storage," he said. "When a customer buys our solution, they get OpenStack Swift at the core."

Jackson brings open-source experience to SwiftStack. Before his current role, Jackson served as vice president of sales for enterprise and the West at open-source NoSQL database developer MongoDB.

MongoDB and SwiftStack share the common challenge of wrapping a commercial layer on top of an open-source technology, Jackson said. And SwiftStack does so in a way that simplifies a key storage decision for customers, he said.

"Coming here, what intrigued me was how customers have to make choices about what to keep on their storage environments," he said. "They don't have the money to keep everything. But with SwiftStack, they don't have to make a choice. They can keep it all on commodity hardware and disk drives."

SwiftStack has proven to be a very channel-friendly partner, said Sue Lewis, chief marketing officer at Silicon Mechanics, a Bothell, Wash.-based systems integrator with a focus on Linux and open-source environments and a three-year channel partner to SwiftStack.

SwiftStack is innovative, and has a lot of vision and traction in the object storage market, Lewis told CRN. "If I were grading software vendors for their ability to enable the channel, I'd give SwiftStack an A-plus," she said. "The product is solid. The promised capabilities and functionality claims are all true. SwiftStack provides tremendous support. They bring us opportunities, and help us build our brands."

Lewis said she hopes Jackson continues the policies at SwiftStack that Silicon Mechanics has grown used to. "SwiftStack has no channel conflicts," she said. "They need to continue to prioritize that, and ensure there are no conflicts that could impact our relationship. And we hope they continue their innovation."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 17, 2015