Data#3 has been appointed as one of Microsoft's tier-one Cloud Solution Providers, joining an exclusive club of partners that can combine Office 365 with their own services, support and billing.
The CSP program was first announced last year, with only seven Microsoft partners announced, with Ensyst, iiNet and Melbourne IT on the pilot program and four more joining the launch group: Empired subsidiary OBS, Queensland's CloudFirst, OzHosting and Nimbal, which is a joint venture of award-winning partners Kloud and XCentral. Insight Australia is also a one-tier CSP.
Since then, Microsoft has been putting more emphasis on what it calls the "two-tier" CSP channel – a method of selling Office 365 via distribution. Its local CSP disties are Ingram Micro and Rhipe.
Microsoft expects this two-tier, distribution model to be the dominant way for its partners to sell Office 365, said director of partner business Philip Goldie in April. To to be successful as a tier-one CSP, partners would need to be deploying at least 5,000 seats per year, "and that is probably a low water mark", said Goldie.
As a tier-one CSP, Data#3 can layer its own services on top of Office 365, as well as providing billing and 24/7 support for customers.
The appointment should come as little surprise, given Data#3's Microsoft credentials – it is one of the vendor's largest licensing partners, and generated $47 million in Microsoft cloud licensing revenue in the 2015 financial year.
Data#3 executive general manager Brad Colledge said: "Data#3 sits in the top 10 partners globally in terms of Microsoft revenue and the CSP program, combined with our services, complements our plan to grow our Microsoft cloud revenue to over $100 million this financial year."
Data#3 chief executive Laurence Baynham added: "Overall, we see this appointment as an opportunity to extend our leadership position with Microsoft in the region, and maintain our global significance in a rapidly expanding market."
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