Tech Data Forges Partnerships to Further Collaborative Cloud Plans

Tech Data’s recent partnership announcement with Collab9 was just the tip of the iceberg in the company’s master vision of offering a variety of cloud solutions. Since developing its TDCloud business unit, the company has sought to bring together cloud service providers and streamline their offerings while simplifying billing and reporting processes.

The Collab9 arrangement has the companies working together to deliver the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) as a service-based offering. The move will accelerate delivery of cloud-based unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) offerings through TDCloud.

Tech Data also recently announced it has become the first channel service provider in the U.S. to offer HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage installation and startup services. This makes the company an authorized HP ServiceOne delivery partner, providing services around HP’s 3PAR StoreServe 7000 Storage, which is targeted at the mid-tier reseller space.

“We bring breadth to the market,” said Bharath Natarajan, director of TDCloud and software services for Tech Data. “We're not creating a new market. But when the cloud gets accepted, we come in and add breadth.”

“No one wants relationships with 60 to 70 different providers,” he added. “You'd be managing invoices all day. Instead, we bring in the right complete solution.”

He added that the company streamlines billing for multivendor solutions, sending out a single bill to partners to normalize expenses. Streamlining such disparate services also means that software, marketing, financial and consulting services may be united for the company’s partners.

"Having Tech Data on board not only helps our VARs move more quickly through the quote to delivery process, but it also simplifies the process and broadens our channel reach to enhance the end customer experience," said Ken Archer, vice president and general manager, AMS TS Channel and Alliances, Enterprise Group, HP.