Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) said during the Channel Partners Conference & Expo trade show Thursday that it is broadening the sales opportunities for its data center products by certifying its channel partners to sell some of these products to their customers.
This is a change in direction for Windstream. Up until now, only the telco's direct sales channel has sold its data center solutions.
Channel partners will be able to get certified initially for four products, including colocation, dedicated servers, Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), and unified email management. It plans to expand the offering to include additional data center products and solutions.
"The data center products they will now sell are complementary to the solutions they have already been offering; it's a great fit," said Don Perkins, senior vice president of business marketing for Windstream, in a release.
Earlier this month, about half of Windstream's channel managers got data certification training at its Charlotte, N.C., facility. Following the certification session, channel managers trained agents and began selling Windstream data center solutions on Feb. 25. This summer other channel managers will complete certification training.
Extending its data center services comes at a pivotal time for Windstream. Having established itself as the fourth largest business service provider in the U.S. market, and increasing its cloud and data center service set through targeted acquisitions, the telco's Q4 IP-based business services revenue rose 9.5 percent over Q4 2011 to $398 million.
For more:
- see the release
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