Talend Seeks More Partner 'Mindshare' For Its Open-Source Software

Open-source software developer Talend is overhauling its partner program, a move necessitated by the company's rapid growth and expansion of its integration software product line.

Talend currently has more than 300 channel partners. While that includes some value-added resellers, most are regional and global systems integrators and some of the changes in the Talend Alliance Program are designed to accommodate the largest SIs who work with Talend software.

"That's allowing us to address more of the enterprise market," said Keith Goldstein, Talend vice president of channels and alliances, in an interview. "We're seeing a lot of interest from the global guys in open source."

Talend sells open-source and commercial versions of its integration software. The vendor started with an open-source ETL (data extract, transform and load) tool, the company has expanded in recent years to offer a range of data, application and business process integration software. Earlier this month the company debuted the Talend Platform for Data Services, a comprehensive system for integrating and synchronizing data between multiple applications.

About 30 percent of Talend's sales are made through channel partners, the executive said. Partners work with the company's free, open-source products and resell the commercial versions of the software.

Talend has added a Diamond tier to its partner program to accommodate large SIs. The program already has Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers and partners move up the tiers according to a point score, Goldstein said. While sales are a factor, partners also earn points based on the range of Talend products they sell, the number of sales and engineering people trained on Talend software, and other criteria.

"The point is, we want to own more of the mindshare of the partners we work with," the executive said.

The expanded partner effort offers resellers a greater range of options in training (including online "on-demand" education), certification and technical support, as well as increased demand-generation and sales assistance. The company also has been building up its field channel organization to deliver that assistance, Goldstein said.

Goldstein also stressed that Talend is taking care not to compete with partners in service areas. "We, as a company, are not building out a professional services organization. So our whole delivery model for services is designed around partners who have integration and implementation services for customer engagements."

Partners are moving over to the new program as current partner contracts expire, according to Goldstein. The company is offering a 20 percent discount off the program fee for partners who enlist by the end of January.