At regional value-added distributor StarLink’s annual partner event, the firm urged its channel community to take advantage of its latest offerings and capitalise on opportunities around securing the hybrid enterprise.
Themed as ‘Partnering for Innovation’, the event saw the unveiling of the distributor’s StarLink Training Academy and E-marketplace, aimed at born in the cloud and MSP partners. Attendees also got a chance to learn more about the firm’s recently announced Innovation Centre.
Avinash Advani, SVP Strategic Alliances and Sales, North America and Europe, StarLink, says, “While we have always offered training, we have now launched it formally and turned it into a full-fledged training academy. Anyone who wants to buy cloud licenses from our vendors who provide those capabilities can now do so directly using our online cloud marketplace.”
Advani adds that even though several other regional distributors have already unveiled their cloud marketplace a while ago, StarLink believes the time is right now.
“It is all about timing. We believe the readiness of the market to use a platform like that is now. We are now seeing partners in this part of the world jumping on board to MSP and cloud technologies. We wanted to launch the marketplace when the market was ready. There is no point in having a system that is sitting there with the capabilities to buy technologies, if it is never going to be used. Therefore, we decided to launch it when the market was more prime.”
Partners also had an opportunity to hear about solutions offered by StarLink vendors directly and discover how they could position it more effectively with customers.
“We have observed that the theme for majority of our vendors is now around securing the hybrid enterprise. Thinking along the premise of hybrid cloud is fundamental for a partner to take away and they should look at what vendors can help in this environment,” adds Advani. “Other than that, we encourage our partners to exploit all the StarLink related initiatives we have announced.”
