Metalogix Launches Formal Channel Program To Support Complex SharePoint Migrations

Metalogix has made a name for itself in the Microsoft ecosystem over the last decade by building tools facilitating SharePoint migrations.

The company, based in Washington D.C., is growing that business and has been working with some 300 partners -- without ever engaging them through a formal channel program.

But that changed Monday, as Metalogix unveiled its first structured, tiered program to enhance its partner alliances, said Mike Lees, the Washington D.C.-based company's chief marketing officer, in an interview ahead of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto.

[Related: Metalogix: The 'Easiest Way To Manage Office 365 Users']

"Our go-to-market has been very much focused on an inside sales model," Lees said. But "a lot of the more complex migrations rely heavily on third-party providers to execute the migrations, and we historically have done that."

Metalogix delivers a suite of tools that wrap around SharePoint and Office 365, filling holes in the out-of-the-box capabilities of those products, and giving administrators and IT managers an environment they can control, manage and deliver.

"In the last 18 months, we doubled-down on our partner strategy," Lees said. "Now we're further doubling-down on our partner ecosystem, starting with the migration business."

The new program, called the Metalogix Advantage Partner Program (MAPP), offers for the first time certifications and enablement, moving the vendor from opportunistic partner alliances to a structured system with multiple tiers.

With the veil pulled off the program, Metalogix will be in recruitment mode at the Microsoft partner conference starting this week in Toronto, he said.

MAPP offers a set of documentations, scripts, and other resources partners can use to build their own migration solutions leveraging Metalogix' APIs, accelerating their time to market. That increases margins and enables the channel to provide highly customized offerings.

"It's essentially a starter kit," Lees said.

The program, in its current launch phase, only addresses SharePoint competencies, but will later be expanded to Office 365 providers.

Metalogix isn't trying to roll the program out to all its 300 partners, instead looking to focus on a much smaller subset of those that represent more-strategic alliances.

"WPC is our first coming out party," Lees said. But the Microsoft Ignite conference coming in September "is going to be a bigger coming out party for a number of initiatives we've got."

Danny Ryan, vice president of business development at ThreeWill, a Microsoft SharePoint implementer based in Alpharetta, Georgia, told CRN that the new program will support his company's use of Metalogix' technology to enhance its own assets.

"Metalogix has a unique offering because we can build on top of it," Ryan told CRN. "With other migration tools, they just do what they do."

While ThreeWill already enjoys a close relationship with Metalogix, frequently meeting with their sales, marketing and product teams, the formal program will facilitate greater coordination on complex migration projects, he said.

"For enterprise customers, each migration comes with its own set of unique hurdles and Metalogix’ product allows us to be flexible to address those hurdles," Ryan told CRN.