How Australia's disties will compete in Microsoft cloud

Rhipe: subscriptions specialist

Dominic O'Hanlon, managing director of ASX-listed Rhipe, said he isn't worried about the competition. The company has been smashing its CSP targets with Microsoft since coming onboard the program a year ago.

"Business is crazy. Today we hit 41,000 seats on CSP, which is unbelievable. Our original target for Australia was 25,000 seats. We came on in Asia much later, and we are way ahead of all of our targets.

"It is accelerating. Here is the cool thing – in the first five months, we got 11,000 seats. In the next five months, we got 20,000 seats. Last month, we got 7,000 seats... CSP is going to be be big."

Previous known as NewLease, Rhipe was historically focused on services provider licence agreements (SPLA), a model Microsoft developed to allow hosting providers to provide software on a subscription model.

"In my opinion, we have been a world leader in SPLA, but globally SPLA is probably less than a $2 billion [Australian dollar] business and we have $100 million. We are a significant player for them globally in SPLA," said O'Hanlon.

"Now when  you think of the SPLA business, it is about charging data centres and resellers at the end of each month for what they've consumed in that month. That is what we do. We have really good billing engines, really good consumption models, the way we pay our staff, everything we do is about driving consumption.

"In our world, if you don't consume you don't pay. The traditional distributor world is, 'We distribute a product to you and you pay for it upfront and if you don't use it, that's your problem'. Everything we do, from marketing, to sales and support, to how we pay our staff, is based upon, 'If you don't use it, you don't pay'. So our launch into CSP has been globally successful because we have taken our heritage and DNA and applied it to public cloud," said O'Hanlon.

Avnet: Azure focus

Avnet is one of the "Azure-focused indirect partners", along with Distribution Central and SaaSplaza. While in theory these companies could provide any products available on CSP, the three companies have each agreed a business plan with Microsoft focused on growing Azure.

Goldie said that "Avnet’s multi-channel cloud commerce platform offers an aggregated billing platform and the Avnet Cloud Marketplace can be white-labelled for partners".

"We see great opportunity for Avnet to showcase their strength in IoT, analytics and security.

The appointment to CSP allows Avnet to expand its existing footprint in the Microsoft channel, having been the first Australian distributor admitted to the vendor's Cloud OS Network (COSN) earlier this year.

Joining COSN means Avnet's private cloud is technically validated with Microsoft Azure, enabling the distie to open up hybrid cloud data centre solutions for its partners.

Distribution Central: new kid in Microsoft channel

Unlike the other six new indirect CSPs, Distribution Central joins the Microsoft channel for the first time. Microsoft expects DC to focus on the midmarket space and specialise in hybrid cloud scenarios.

Goldie was excited about what Distribution Central could bring in terms of integrated solutions. DC already offers its 'product on demand', or POD, range, and Goldie could see how Microsoft cloud services could be pre-integrated with hardware from Distribution Central's vendors, which include close Microsoft partner Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which appointed the distie after a major tender process earlier this year.

Distribution Central also operates a cloud marketplace. "Their DC CloudSelect platform offers a fully automated aggregation, integration and customisation point for both cloud and other ICT services with integrated billing, delivering an outstanding user experience that makes the delivery of cloud products and services easy and simple," said Goldie.

"DC CloudSelect is also available white-labelled for their channel partners and we see this as key differentiator to help drive demand for Microsoft Azure."