Entuity beefs up channel with strategic hires 2 February, 2010 By Mark Cox

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Entuity, which has been shipping product since 1999, sells mainly into the SME space, offering the scalability of an enterprise solution without the complexity with its' Eye of the Storm (EYE) software portfolio. They moved into the channel approximately five years ago, and now most of their business is channel, although they still have a small direct sales force.

"We realized the way SME companies were buying this technology was really through resellers, that they were outsourcing for their expertise," said Ken Klapproth, vice president of marketing for Entuity. "We recognized the importance of finding resellers with customers who already trusted them, and in the last five years we've moved from mostly direct to mostly indirect."

"Our approach to working with partners is that we bring the technical expertise to them and they bring to us the customer familiarity, the close relationships," Klapproth said. "We want to help them to be the technical networking expert with their partners."

To assist the development of these technical skills, Entuity has hired Jeff Cloud as an additional channel manager focused on North America. He has 30 years of experience in pre-sale systems engineering and post-sale business development program management at companies like MPX Technology, Broadview Networks, I-Link, Newbridge Networks, General DataComm, and AT&T Information Systems.

"We sell a highly technical product, and we offer a lot of different marketing and sales resources for resellers to use," Klapproth said. "But technical resources are in the most demand, having someone who can show them how to configure software and show proof of concept. That's where Jeff Cloud comes in." They are also looking for a person to fill a similar role in Europe.

Entuity has strategic relationships with vendors like BMC Software, Brocade, and Cisco, but it wants to develop further relationships with top-tier players, and so it has also hired John McHugh as vice president of business development and alliances to identify, target, and build strategic partnerships that increase the company's presence throughout the industry. He is a 20-year technology marketing veteran who has played a vital role in the growth of many companies including BEZ Systems, Cayenne Software, and Precise Software Solutions.

Entuity has about 40 active resellers, but they are looking to continue to grow that. Last month it signed on its' first distribution partner in North America in pursuit of that aim. Lifeboat Distribution, an international specialty software distributor for virtualization, security, application and network infrastructure, business continuity/disaster recovery, and other technically sophisticated products, will distribute the EYE product line to its more than 5000 resellers in the United States and Canada.