Purpose of Partnerships

Since I’m entitled to only one good post a month I won’t bore you with the extended details of just how dedicated we are at OWN to helping our partners become successful and profitable in IT. But today we launched the most significant upgrade to the Offsite Backup product that Own Web Now only sells through our partners and does so at cost. Yeah, you read that right.

Why?

Because there are many products that OWN as a business sells in our consulting and project engagements and even through our partners that people pay a nice premium for my team to have nice wages, latest software, kickass hardware and access to everything they need to do their jobs. Plus the Buy-Vlad-A-Ferrari-In-Every-Color fund that is near and dear to my heart.

And sometimes, out of the size and underutilization on our network we are able to create special offerings that are not key to our business or to our profitability but they can be used by our partners to create immensely profitable lines of business.

I look at it as a little perk for the people that could easily just nitpick the cheapest or best solutions but still come to us for everything and trust that even if we are not the #1 on the block, we will still work very hard for them and for their clients.

So some of my partners lost accounts to the competition which supposedly had a better archiving solution and wasn’t limited by the old LiveArchive’s 7 day rolling start. My partners brought this to me, I felt the pain and we did something. So with ExchangeDefender 4.0 we opened up a virtual can of whopass in terms of archiving, teaming up with Microsoft, SuperMicro and Western Digital to deliver 1 year of archiving. Free. Yes, FREE. My partners now have a leg up on everyone in the market, not to mention the shot in the arm in profitability that nobody can match.

Now we are doing the same with backups. Lot’s of people want to be in the backup space, but they are pure-play backup providers and they just don’t have the network infrastructure experience OWN does – so they have to implement things like dedicated hardware purchases, long term support contracts, tie-ins with other products. One even goes out to cripple their software so that you can only backup a fraction locally compared to what you get to upload to the cloud.

Today, we finished network upgrades to our offsite backup. Our existing clients will keep the same cost structure, grandfathered, for all existing and upcoming account. In case you’re curious, that’s $1/GB offsite backup and $6/mo/agent (which can be installed on multiple PCs in the same organization).

Is this some shabby USB hard drive we’re reselling? No, it’s an enterprise-class redundant storage array, backed with two replication grids in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Oh, and for our EU partners we’ve built the same product in Europe between UK and Neatherlands so you can take advantage of the backups at the same price, with the cloud redundancy and without the fear of the USA Patriot Act.

Oh, and if you’re a Shockey Monkey or ConnectWise user, you might want to keep your ears clean around the 18th of the month for yet another announcement in this gig. In October the Autotask kids will get the same treat. 🙂

Competition…. smoked. And we don’t even compete in this solution portfolio!

I like it Vlad, but….

…. but do you have to sound like such a self-righteous asshole?

In a nutshell, fuck yes.

I realize very few of you reading this blog actually work for me or work with me as partners and don’t get to feed off the same energy that I instill in my company and in our relationships with the people that really want to work with us.

That, to me, is what partnerships are all about.

It’s not about paying lip service.

It’s not about a logo.

It’s not about a long term contract.

It’s about businesses recognizing the assholes in this business who are willing to work hard to make each other profitable. Folks around the world use our Hosted Exchange, ExchangeDefender, SharePoint, Web Hosting, PSA, Offsite Backup and other solutions every day. They help their clients solve problems and tell them just who they trust with the data.

And at the end of the day, all of my partners could just say – screw Vlad, it’s all about me and my bag of toys – but many, many, many, many don’t.

And when you’ve got my back like that….. there is no extent to which we won’t use our competitive advantage to give you an edge.

That may offend the sensibilities for some, or their religious dogma or their sense of purpose. Tough. I run a business, not a church or a hug group, and if you’re on that same page there is a way to remain competitive in the technology space.

As my buddy Erick would say, thats how I roll.

P.S. Ok, so the exuberance is partially due to the new backup software… but most of it is due to the September #’s that I just got. I am || close to doing the mexican hat dance and throw money in the air.