Data Center Services Provider vXchnge Launches First-Ever Partner Program; The 'Channel Is In Our Blood'

Data center services provider vXchnge is betting big on the channel to drive sales in high-growth markets by launching its first-ever channel partner program, which includes a compensation program, training and bonuses for bringing in net new deals.

"Channel is in our blood," said Joseph Mileo, vice president of global channel development at vXchnge, in an interview with CRN. "We want our partners to take on that complete sales ownership role with the customer with the support of our team, but they own that customer relationship and intimacy … I also don't believe anyone else has something like our in\site platform to help manage the customer's infrastructure. That will be huge for channel partners."

The Tampa, Fla.-based colocation and data-center-as-a-service specialist unveiled its inaugural partner program on Wednesday, which offers hands-on partner engagement, dedicated training, deal registration, access to support technicians and a team of channel sales and partner development managers.

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vXchnge, named on CRN's 2016 Data Center 100 list, pays a one-time upfront bonus to partners who bring in new deals along with an annuity-based compensation program for solution providers.

Mileo said vXchnge is seeking VARs, system integration and telecom agents looking to drive sales around its 14 data centers located in "high-growth" markets including Austin, Texas; Chappaqua and New York, N.Y.; Cleveland, Ohio; Nashville, Tenn.; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pa.; Portland, Ore.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Santa Clara, Calif.; Secaucus, N.J.; and St. Louis, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, Minn.

vXchnge touts its new in\site solution as an industry-leading business intelligence platform that provides complete transparency for partners to develop, build and drive business outcomes for customers. The platform offers detailed views, compliance reports, reporting tools and interactions for managing deployments within vXchnge data centers.

"It allows partners to manage the data center infrastructure right down to the power utilization, right down to bandwidth utilization, allows you to easily manage inventory, manage compliances – all through this one platform," said Mileo. "Our partners will deliver higher-level services to their customers. In\site is one of the key differentiators that we are providing to our partners at no cost because it's part of the services when they sell it."

Although it's the vendor's first partner program, top executives at the company – including Chairman and CEO Keith Olsen, Mileo, and Chief Marketing Officer Ernest Sampera – have decades of experience in the channel at vendors such as AT&T, Sonus and Equinix. "It's not the first time the leaders in our organization has been at this rodeo," said Mileo. "We have over 30 years of experience in building, running and developing channels."

In January, vXchnge formed a strategic alliance with Colt Data Centre Services to expand operations into Asia and Europe. Approximately 18 months ago, the company went through the process of hardening and expanding all of its data centers sites.

"Now we're ready to drive and hit the markets by leveraging those trusted providers – the channel partners in those markets," said Mileo.