Box’s $250M IPO: What Does It Mean For The Channel?
After Box yesterday officially announced its quest for a $250 million in an initial public offering (IPO), MSPmentor, along with its sister site Talkin Cloud, scanned through the company’s IPO prospectus for any mentions of Box channel partners. Here’s what we found.
While Box did mention channel partners more than a few times in its S-1 document, which was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it did not get into the details. When asked to provide further comment on how the company plans to work with its channel partners, Box declined to comment.
Here’s a quick recap of what Box had to say in its prospectus about the role of channel partners:
Channel partners can expand Box’s sales reach — The cloud-based file sharing and sync service company first mentioned its channel partners on page six, where it pledged to expand the company’s “sales reach through channel and strategic partners.”
Box participates in an “intensely competitive” market — It summarized the cloud-based enterprise collaboration services market as fragmented and rapidly evolving, “with relatively low barriers to entry for certain applications and services.”
Operating results could be harmed if Box fails to compete effectively — What does Box think about its competitors? Box noted how its competitors have “established marketing relationships and major distribution agreements with channel partners, consultants, system integrators and resellers.”
It has an extensive list of channel partner types — Box’s channel partners include value-added resellers, solution providers, direct market resellers, system integrators, distributors and service providers, among others.
To accelerate the company’s sales reach globally and generate long-term, profitable revenue streams, Box will leverage its “partners’ strong customer relationships.” So what’s the overall plan?:
- Leverage existing relationships with channel partners to market, resell, integrate with or endorse its services.
- Identify partners and resellers, and negotiate and document relationships with them.
- Capitalize on the system integrator and developer ecosystem to create applications that will integrate with the Box platform.
- Avoid acquisitions of Box partners to prevent a decrease in the number of current and potential customers.
Some of Box’s partners are Ingram Micro (IM), CDW (CDW), Insight Direct (NSIT), SoftChoice, AT&T (T) and SHI International Corp.
For additional coverage on Box going public and its affect on the channel, visit Talkin’ Cloud for the full story and for further updates.
Follow CJ Arlotta on Twitter @cjarlotta and Google+ for further updates on the story above.
