Datastor snaps up FalconStor Software

Datastor has been appointed the first A/NZ distributor of FalconStor Software under a new reseller support program dubbed 'partner choice'.

FalconStor's data protection and storage virtualisation solutions will be sold through Datastor's reseller partners who will have access to the partner choice web portal.

The portal, which includes selling tools, marketing documents, lead registration and sales incentives, was awarded a five star rating by CRN USA.

Datastor sales manager Andrew Huntley said FalconStor's 'vendor agnostic' product suite would help resellers to reach larger customers in the A/NZ region.

"Traditionally our core market has been in SMB and SME. The FalconStor partner choice program really extends our reach within the reseller community," Huntley told CRN. 

"FalconStor gives us an opportunity to offer more of those feature-rich solutions and move higher up the food chain while also growing the opportunities within our existing customer base."

According to Huntley, FalconStor is "very complementary" to a number of Datastor's existing vendor partners, with its resellers able to bundle products into affordable data recovery and business continuity solutions.

"Simply by adding FalconStor NSS or CDP software to our [Promise Technology] SANs, customers can economically create a fully-fledged DR or BC solution with advanced features such as disk virtualisation, thin provisioning and auto-tiering as well as any-to-any auto restore,” Huntley said.

Huntley said Datastor would personally train and mentor its reseller partners in addition to FalconStor's own support programs.

"One of the values we bring to our reseller partners is that we get our technical department fully trained up on any product we take on," Huntley said.  

"So we'll be transferring that knowledge and helping partners deliver the solutions hand-in-hand until eventually they become self-sufficient."

Huntley declined to divulge how many partners have signed up to the FalconStor partner choice program, which is currenty undergoing a 90-day transition period. 

"It's still early days [but] we've spoken to a number of partners already and they're really keen to take a closer look. In the new year, we're hoping we'll start to see more partners come on board."

Datastor partners with a range of hardware and software vendors in A/NZ including Dell, Acronis, Archiware, Tanberg Data and Promise Technologies.

It has approximately 1500 reseller partners, of which "around 300" deal with Datastor on a quarterly basis.