Cloud Distribution, Gridstore and Unidesk target Microsoft VDI channel

Cloud Distribution (CD) has announced a joint agreement with Gridstore and Unidesk, Microsoft’s chosen partner for delivering virtualised Windows applications. The alliance, says CD, brings to UK channel partners a solution to the “critical challenges” facing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) projects.

Variable performance, the high cost per desktop and an inability to scale operations have traditionally been the issues that have hindered VDI deployments, said CD. The joint VDI solution – combining Gridstore’s hyper-converged infrastructure and the Windows application delivery capabilities of Unidesk – “effectively removes these barriers” to “provide high-performance, low cost and easy to manage VDI”, CD said.

“Price, performance and complexity are common complaints thwarting VDI deployments, but this will no longer happen with the disruptive combined solution from Gridstore and Unidesk,” said Bruce Hockin, director of storage solutions at Cloud Distribution. “Gridstore has an outstanding platform for Microsoft environments and Unidesk has industry leading layering technology. They are extremely complementary, and together deliver high performance, scalable centralised desktop projects not seen at this price point before,” said Hockin.

He added: “It is a formidable proposition for our channel partners to improve their project win rates and profitability. There’s rapid growth in this space right now and this joint vendor partnership signing will provide our channel partners the industry-leading solutions.”

Cloud Distribution says it is the only distributor in the UK for both Gridstore and Unidesk and is primarily responsible for developing the channel for the joint solution, with the focus on “driving Microsoft centric partner engagement”. CD plans to recruit between 12 and 18 partners in the compute/storage market as well as Microsoft VARs who have the specialised skills based around virtualised environments and VDI.

“Gridstore and Unidesk together have demonstrated the ability to deliver a superior VDI solution for less than £400 per desktop – less than the price of a physical PC. This unified solution provides an optimised platform and framework that delivers a true turnkey VDI experience,” said Andy Hill, VP Sales, EMEA, Gridstore. “Now with Cloud Distribution who know the storage and virtualisation market well, we can bring this disruptive solution to the UK market.”

Roger Baskerville, regional director, EMEA, Unidesk, said: “Cloud’s value based approach offering outstanding support, training and market development to partners was a crucial factor in us appointing them as our distributor. Our level of integration is already very close, with them effectively becoming our channel and allowing us to focus on customer growth.”

As well as the integrated proposition as a VDI solution into the Microsoft channel, CD will also take Gridstore and Unidesk to market individually and offer them to partners as stand-alone solutions. All partners will have access to extensive marketing support via Cloud’s Altitude Marketing Services to simplify and accelerate their go to market, sales pipeline and new revenue.

Last November, Cloud Distribution became the first UK distributor of SystemFlip, the backup and disaster recovery specialist. SystemFlip eliminates the complexity of data protection in the enterprise with automated backup and disaster recovery, both on-site and off-site in a single product.

@AntonySavvas