10 Hot Emerging Vendors For July 2011

Ready For Primetime

Step right up and get what may very well be your first look at 10 hot new IT vendors that are exploding onto the scene. Each month, CRN profiles 10 new IT vendors that are looking to shake up the industry in various technology segments, from security to cloud computing, from software to hardware.

These tech startups know the importance of the channel and are looking to align with valued channel partners to get their names and products out.

Take a look and get introduced to 10 vendors that are ready for prime time.

1E

Company Name: 1E
Tech Sector: Software
Key Product: NightWatchman Enterprise

The Lowdown: While 1E was originally founded in 1997, the company turned its attention to the channel in 2011 by establishing a new, indirect channel model and making a significant investment in building out a channel team. 1E makes a host of power management products and solutions, but its flagship NightWatchman Enterprise is a PC power management software that manages computers remotely and automatically across the network in a bid to drop energy consumption and lower CO2 emissions. New York-based 1E boasts more than 4 million licenses users across 1,100 organizations in 42 countries and says it has saved users $530 million in energy costs and cut carbon emissions by 4 million tons. Last month, 1E brought aboard new channel partners to deliver its portfolio across the U.S. and Canada and has allotted additional technical and sales resources to be placed in key regional territories across North America.

Nebula

Company Name: Nebula
Tech Sector: Cloud Computing
Key Product: OpenStack Cloud Appliance

The Lowdown: Nebula just launched. Literally. The company got its jump-off at OSCON during the last week of July, after just a few months operating in stealth mode. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, founded by former NASA CTO and OpenStack co-founder Chris Kemp and a handful of other industry veterans, is building a new cloud computing appliance based on the Rackspace-led OpenStack cloud initiative. The appliance, the company said, will give solution providers a turnkey cloud solution to build private clouds for their enterprise customers.

Nine Technology

Company Name: Nine Technology
Tech Sector: Storage
Key Product: Powered By Nine solutions

The Lowdown: Middleborough, Mass.-based Nine Technology offers data center managers, VARs and MSPs turnkey online backup and restore solutions to let them build and offer scalable and reliable services to customers. With Nine Technology's Powered by Nine solutions, VARs can handle their clients' critical data stored on desktops, laptops and servers and build a revenue-driving business around the backup and restore play. Nine Technology was founded in 2008.

Backupify

Company Name: Backupify
Tech Sector: Cloud Computing
Key Product: Backupify

The Lowdown: Founded in 2008, Backupify this year aimed its cloud-based data archiving and search and restore solutions to the channel with the launch of its Backupify Authorized Reseller program. The program lets solution providers offer their customers a complete cloud offering -- including backup and recovery -- while realizing a new, recurring source of revenue. Backupify aims to prevent data loss and provide archiving for a host of cloud computing plays, with its flagship targeted at Google Apps to enable archiving, search and restore capabilities for Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Contracts. Cambridge, Mass.-based Backupify also works with other popular online services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

CloudFlare

Company Name: CloudFlare
Tech Sector: Security
Key Product: CloudFlare

The Lowdown: Web security upstart CloudFlare, which recently raked in $20 million in series B funding, makes cloud-based software to protect Web sites from security violations like malware and denial of service attacks. According to the company, CloudFlare software can be installed on any Web site by changing its domain's DNS settings. As a bonus, San Francisco-based CloudFlare claims that its customer Web sites get a speed and performance boost as well. Founded in 2010, CloudFlare quickly rose to fame with a well publicized namedrop from hacker group LulzSec, which has claimed to be a fan of the service and has publicly mentioned CloudFlare via Twitter. CloudFlare also boasts a number of CloudFlare Certified Hosting Provider Partners.

VirtualWorks

Company Name: VirtualWorks
Tech Sector: Virtualization
Key Product: Content Virtualization Technology

The Lowdown: While virtualization startup VirtualWorks won't have a product on the market until later this year, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based virtualization player has big plans for the channel for its technology that will complement VMware, Citrix and Microsoft virtualization plays.

Calling itself a content virtualization technology company, Virtual works plans to help enterprises organize the data residing in application silos and file stores into a single index and use virtualization to improve management and make data accessible to any application or device. VirtualWorks plans to hit the market via its PartnerWorks program, which will include registered and premier partner tiers.

Nextivity

Company Name: Nextivity
Tech Sector: Networking/Wireless
Key Product: Cel-Fi family

The Lowdown: Founded in 2006, Nextivity produces indoor coverage technology that optimizes the experience of wireless subscribers and increases Radio Frequency (RF) network capacity for mobile operators. The San Diego-based company's Cel-Fi system is designed to eliminate wireless dead zones inside a building with carrier-grade coverage. Nextivity is building out its portfolio of patent-pending technology and leveraging advanced signal processing and intelligent antenna design to create a new market for self-configuring, environmentally-aware indoor coverage systems.

FrontRange Solutions

Company Name: FrontRange Solutions
Tech Sector: Software
Key Product: SaaS IT Service Management

FrontRange Solutions has been in business for more than a decade, but this year the company opened the channel floodgates and began allowing VARs to offer its SaaS IT service management solutions (ITSM). FrontRange's SaaS ITSM solution launched in January, but quickly gained traction, prompting FrontRange to open up ITSM sales to the reseller channel. The solution helps customers define, track and manage company metrics across various verticals.

Syncplicity

Company Name: Syncplicity
Tech Sector: Storage
Key Product: Syncplicity Business Edition

The Lowdown: Menlo Park, Calif.-based Syncplicity was created in 2008 to solve the challenge of securely accessing, syncing, sharing, backing up and managing files in a cloud computing world. Understanding that there are disparate islands of data spread across laptops, servers, mobile devices and in cloud applications, Syncplicity looks to ease how users find, access, share and backup their data and files across all devices from anywhere at any time. And Syncplicity is making a splash in the channel with its Syncplicity Reseller Program.

ForgeRock

Company Name: ForgeRock
Tech Sector: Software
Key Product: ForgeRock Open Platform

With headquarters in the U.S., the U.K, France and Norway, ForgeRock has become a global software player with identity-oriented middleware at its heart. ForgeRock offers subscriptions that enable the deployment of open source and standards-compliant software from the I3 Open Platform, which is a comprehensive identity, integration and interaction platform. ForgeRock, founded in 2010, provides customers with enterprise-class subscriptions for the platform as well as training and access to an extensive partner community. The ForgeRock platform is also available via consulting and hosting partners.