Bitrix More Than Just Low-Cost Alternative to SharePoint

Company:

Headquarters: Alexandria, Va.

Technology Sector: Software

Key Product: Bitrix Intranet Portal

Year Founded: 2006

Number of Channel Partners: 3,000 worldwide

Ideal Channel Partner: Midmarket-focused solution providers

Why You Should Care: Businesses are seeking low-cost intranet portal solutions for managing internal communications and collaboration.

The Lowdown: Bitrix could be seen as just a low-cost alternative to Microsoft SharePoint and other pricey communication and collaboration platforms. While it is that, there's a lot more to the company, its software and its approach to the channel.

Bitrix, which has roots in Moscow, Russia, where its development operations remain, bills itself as an "enterprise 2.0" company. It developed a content management system in its early years and last year used that as a foundation for developing the Bitrix Intranet Portal.

"We call it 'Intranet 2.0,'" said Tatiana Romanova, sales vice president, noting that the software offers a broad range of capabilities including social networking, application integration, RSS feeds, messaging, cloud-computing, document and content management, forms and blogs.

"It doesn't require a lot of customization on the customer side. And it's very affordable," she said, adding that the software is targeted toward small and midsize companies.

Bitrix has always relied on the channel: About 80 percent of its sales are through its 3,000 channel partners (VARs, systems integrators and consultants) worldwide, with online sales accounting for the balance. Partners install the portal application, integrate it with other software and train users and administrators.

Bitrix continues to recruit resellers and in March launched a channel partner program through which it provides partners with training and marketing resources, including Webinars and joint-marketing activities for acquiring new customers. The three-tier program ranks partners as registered, certified and gold certified (with discounts of 40 percent, 45 percent and 50 percent, respectively), based on their expertise and the number of projects they have completed.