Nomadesk Launches Cloud Storage Partner Program

Cloud storage vendor Nomadesk has launched a partner program, providing VARs a solution to integrate off-site backups into desktop operating systems as if they were additional hard drives. Here are some details about the program.

Nomadesk, founded in 2004 to provide synchronized data across different computers and devices for today's, ahem, nomadic professionals, places a high value on being a complete solution, according to Nomadesk VP of Business Development Dan Rudrich.

When it's installed, Nomadesk encrypts the data locally; synchronizes said data across all users' machines; and enables collaboration by letting you invite other users to view your stored files, Rudrich says. It also offers a mobile phone interface to get at your files from anywhere. At the most basic level, it's like Dropbox for the enterprise space.

So why should MSPs care that they have a partner program now? Well, for starters, they have the most competitive pricing I've ever seen at $15/month. Not $15/month/user; not $15/month/GB - $15 a month gets you unlimited storage on one of their "virtual fileservers." They also offer a service called TheftGuard which allows you to "shred" files on a compromised computer.

Now, $15/month is pretty good, but it's worth noting that that's to have everyone share a single virtual drive. If your clients want everybody to have their own, you're going to have to pay per user. Even so, this solution isn't for everybody, Rudrich says.

There's a tendency in the channel, according to him, to only go for the one-time big score -- a costly e-mail appliance, for example. Nomadesk is hoping to find channel partners who are willing to treat software as a service (SaaS) as the potential huge recurring revenue driver it is.

"SaaS is a completely different model," Rudrich says, and it means that you can have money coming in from a single client deployment month after month, year after year.

I'm having a hard time questioning his logic. What do the MSPs reading this think?