Distie Magirus has unveiled a programme to get its reseller base fully clued-up on moving customers into the cloud.
Magirus launched its Cloud Computing Training and Certification programme, to educate its partners through its Magirus Academy division, with hands on sales and technical training.
While cloud computing may be the hot topic at the moment, the distributor is concerned that the benefits might not have been sufficiently communicated to customers.
Magirus will be tempting its resellers back into the classrooms, starting with a module aimed at sales reps. Courses will be available through WebEx too.
The focus is on delivering Infrastructure as a Service through the channel, with a step by step guide to IaaS, highlighting the benefits of various different features of the cloud model including changes to billing.
Datacentre Sales Director at Magirus, Mel Wilks, told ChannelBiz UK that the programme aims to solve the “general confusion” of what cloud is.
“Everyone has their own interpretation”, Wilks said. “We are trying to educate the sales people to take their mindset away from the in and out hardware sell to the ongoing on revenues from infrastructure, and the more margin from the services.”
“Most businesses run on a monthly cycle, and it is always about trying to sell as much as possible by the month end.
“We are trying to slowly educate that that model it is not sustainable on a long term basis, if cloud computing takes hold the way it looks like it will,” he said.
Wilks pointed out that most of the vendors in hardware and software stacks seem to be adopting the cloud model, and that is going to dictate what the resellers are going to make their money on.
“We are trying to ease them into cloud computing if they are confused and they don’t know how to define it to their customers,” Wilks said. “We are hoping that if they go through the training they will be able to have that conversation with their customers.”
He warned, however, that if firms fail to see the benefits of moving to the cloud, they may end up looking back in three years and wonder where their business went.
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