Whiptail appoints new EMEA channel boss

Whiptail has appointed a new EMEA channel boss to capitalise on rapid growth, overseeing the plans for “dramatic” expansion of the storage vendor’s operations.

Sally Reade is to take on the role as channel director in EMEA, joining from her previous post as UK&I channel manager for Isilon at EMC.  In her 14 years channel experience Reade has also been responsible for helping driving Veeam’s EMEA channel presence to 700 partners, as well as managing VMware’s top 15 UK&I partners.

Taking on the role at Whiptail, Reade will be tasked with building on the swift growth that the storage vendor has enjoyed this year across EMEA.  As well as projecting revenue growth in the region of massive 1,100 percent in 2012, the fast-growing vendor has increased its channel presence, up from five VARs and distributors at the start of the year to around 50 currently.

This has involved joining up with some of the big players in the UK, with Whiptail committed to a 100 percent channel approach, Reade told ChannelBiz UK.

“The channel is going to be imperative for us going forward, we are committed to a 100 percent channel model,” Reade said.

Whiptail has been actively engaging with partners, signing up with some of the bigger VARs, but going forward, Reade said that she will be on the lookout for a wide range of partners across EMEA to be added to the company’s channel ranks.

“We see ourselves having a real mix of partners,” she said. “They can be everyone from larger partners like Softcat, to the very small niche partners, that focus more on solutions selling and consultancy.  We are not going after a specific size of partner.”

Reade said that partner recruitment is  Whiptail’s “number one focus” at the moment, and will also be looking to add to the number of distributors across EMEA, having already signed up with SDG in the UK.   This will involve attracting business from competitors in the flash storage market such as Violin Memory, with the channel getting more acquainted with its SSD storage arrays.

“We are also in talks with a number of other distributors in different regions, and a keen business objective for us and for them is to recruit partners,” Reade said.   “We are seeing partners who are currently engaged with our competitors coming to us, because they want to be able to offer their customers something different, or because their customers are asking for Whiptail products.”

With Whiptail seeing substantial growth it is possible that some of the bigger vendors like Dell or HP looking to build out their SSD storage offerings could come knocking.  However, Reade said that it is “early days” for the company at the moment, and though nothing can be ruled out, there is no official line on future acquisitions.

Plans for the future are to continue expanding channel presence, Reade said, and  to begin to move into deals with systems integrators.