Pure Storage advances Its P3 Channel Partner Program

The newly updated P3 program was designed to accelerate partner profitability and demand generation, offering pre-sales tools and rewards that align to performance goals, sales and technical capabilities and marketing investments. In its first full year of channel operations, the company signed more than 100 partners worldwide and achieved over 125-percent consecutive quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) channel growth.

"Storage systems and services are among the bestsellers in the channel today, and solution providers are being called upon by their enterprise and midmarket customers to provide equipment, software and support to ensure data availability and integrity," said Lawrence M. Walsh, president and CEO of The 2112 Group, a channel research and strategy firm. "Flash continues to become an increasingly viable alternative to legacy enterprise storage solutions, making it a prime opportunity for the channel."

P3: Accelerating Mainstream Adoption of All-Flash Storage Worldwide
Pure Storage first announced its plan to be 100% channel devoted when it launched in August 2011. To underscore its commitment to the channel, the company then launched P3 in July 2012. Since that time, it has successfully secured more than 100 partnerships with forward-looking organizations that recognize the numerous benefits and immense opportunity presented by the company's award-winning FlashArray. The company has aggressively expanded its international footprint as well, securing strategic partnerships with resellers across the EMEA and APAC regions, including Softcat in the United Kingdom, Antemeta in France, Observatory Crest in Australia, EmFrontier in Korea, and Tokyo Electron Device Limited (TED) in Japan.

"Flash storage is gaining acceptance as a mainstream medium now -- and not just for performance gain. The channel needs to be prepared for this and should look to identify those storage vendors who can demonstrate a definite capability to support such workloads in a highly performant manner, at a cost-effective price point," said Clive Longbottom, founder and service director at Quocirca. "The vendor should be a trusted partner in the relationship, providing all the additional support the channel company needs."

The Pure Storage PAC: Uniting the World's Leading Channel Executives
Bringing together executives from many of the storage industry's most prominent value added resellers (VARs) and strategic partner organizations worldwide, the Pure Storage PAC will help to shape the trajectory of the company's channel and go-to-market strategies, advise on partner sales and technical initiatives, and participate in future product roadmap discussions.

The new Partner Advisory Council is an invitation-only coalition with representatives in many of the world's leading resellers in the IT and enterprise data storage markets that will help to drive Pure Storage's partner strategies and enable the company to continue developing its best-in-class channel program. Inaugural members of the PAC include:
· Applied Computer Systems (ACS): Kurt Steinhauer, VP of Sales
· Ahead: Eric Kaplan, CTO
· AntemetA: Bertrand Bombes de Villiers, VP of Sales and Marketing
· CloudGov Technologies: Mike Gregory, President
· Corus360: Steve Johnson, President & CEO
· Dewpoint: Brian Dumont, VP of Sales
· ePlus: Andy Shulman, SVP of West Sales
· Integrated Archive Systems (IAS): Amy Rao, CEO
· Integrated Data Storage (IDS): Justin Mescher, CTO
· Iron Bow Technologies: Louis Hackerman, Head of Business Development
· Softcat: Sam Routledge, Solutions Director UK

Not All Channel Partner Programs Were Created Equal: The P3 Difference
The P3 program recognizes partners who lead with Pure Storage and provides a roadmap towards achieving the highest margins in the industry, recurring revenue streams and partner led services opportunities. Pure Storage offers channel partners unparalleled demand generation and sales tools, demo gear and rewards for selling its award-winning FlashArray in three newly created tiers: Gold, Silver and Authorized, and was designed to offer a fast track to capitalize on the high-growth enterprise flash storage market. Enhancements to P3 for 2013 include:
· New P3 Gold and Silver Partner Tiers: Developed to support partners at different stages of maturity. Partners earn greater benefits and rewards as they achieve sales and technical accreditations, participate in demand generation marketing programs and deliver pre and post sales customer value-add services (POCs and Installation Services).
· New PureRewards: a rewards based program for delivering pre and post sales value-add services
o Deeper deal registration discounts based on higher value add tiers
o Competitive take-out program margin guarantees
o MDF and incentives based on specified demand generation activities
o Demo lab gear seed units for the new "Million Dollar Club"
· New PureAcademy: an online learning management system to on-board partners
o Sales and technical training videos delivered by sales experts
o Same training used internally for Pure Storage sales teams
o iMobile access & downloadable sales acceleration resources
· New PureDemand: A suite of fully funded online and off-line demand generation tools
o Automated content syndication
o Co-brandable templates and campaigns
o E-mail and Call Blitz Appointment programs

"We are exceedingly proud of P3's traction and successes over the past year. The response from industry leading VARs and distributor organizations has been extremely gratifying and validates that our decision to be 100% committed to the channel in our go-to-market strategy was the right one," said David Hatfield, President at Pure Storage. "We will continue to invest in the execution of our channel-led sales efforts, as we strive to be best in class across all enterprise storage companies. We will we work closely with our newly formed partner advisory council to deliver next generation solutions that address customer pains like never before, and develop innovative sales and technical support tools that will support a thriving partner ecosystem."