The company just underwent a private acquisition that ensures it’s in the channel “for the long haul.”

Kelly Teal, Contributing Editor

May 27, 2020

8 Min Read
Cloud Storage
Shutterstock

As COVID-19 continues to keep employees working from home, demand for the Panzura Freedom global cloud file system, a collaboration and storage platform, is increasing. And because of that, and its acquisition in April, Panzura remains intent on beefing up its channel partner ranks and program.

Panzura, founded in 2008, last month sold to venture capital firm Profile Capital Management. The companies didn’t reveal the purchase price. It turns out the timing was, well, memorable.

Panzura named Jill Stelfox CEO earlier this month.

Stelfox-Jill_Panzura.jpg

Panzura’s Jill Stelfox

“You can imagine that getting a deal done in a pandemic was different,” Stelfox told Channel Futures. “Had we done this in normal times, we could have done a big partner meeting and really gotten to know each other. Now we have to do things in a different way,” she said.

Even so, Panzura aims to take advantage of this unusual time and beef up its channel strategy.

“We want to launch an effective larger partner program coming out of this,” Stelfox said. “We’re doing a lot around that behind the scenes.”

Checking the Cloud Collaboration Forecast

When it comes to potential revenue sources, channel partners like to understand the financial possibilities. Knowing that, the opportunity for cloud collaboration sales, even aside from COVID-19, appears significant: One research snippet valued the market at $29.6 billion last year, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 13.4% through 2025. Cloud storage may soar even higher: Fortune Business Insights sees demand reaching $297.5 billion by 2027 for a 25.4% CAGR from 2019.

As with many next-generation technologies, the definitions of cloud collaboration and cloud storage can encompass a range of interpretations. To that point, Panzura Freedom qualifies more as file sharing than as unified communications (which many people automatically associate with “cloud collaboration”; it also does not act like a traditional cloud storage offering à la Amazon S3). Yet because Panzura Freedom lives in the cloud, moves around among different clouds (more on that later), and allows for simultaneous editing and more, you could say it falls under both the cloud collaboration and cloud storage umbrellas.

Either way, Panzura is counting on projections like those mentioned to play a role in fueling its trajectory.

Understanding Panzura’s Value

Years back, Panzura created the Freedom global cloud file system. The company bills Freedom as a way to share very large files – architectural drawings, video games in the design stages and the like – among employees. File-locking prevents overwriting or versioning, while “military-grade security” keeps data secure, Panzura says. Also included are built-in archiving, and backup and disaster recovery.

“Think of it as a more sophisticated version of Google Sheets,” Stelfox said.

In terms of how Freedom works, “You’re literally sharing live over your desktop,” she explained.

For instance, someone in California and someone else in Germany can edit the file in real-time — all without having to know where the document actually resides.

“We call the product ‘Freedom’ because …

… it gives the freedom to move from [one] platform … to another,” Stelfox said. “The user doesn’t have to know where it’s stored.”

Rather, employees access Panzura Freedom while, in the background, the IT team (or its channel partner) decides into which cloud the traffic should go. Since most organizations use more than one cloud, a secondary benefit arises from this approach, Stelfox said: Panzura lets the IT team place the file into the least-expensive cloud, helping to save money. While this is not the primary reason for using Panzura, it adds rationale for controlling cloud expenses as organizations pay more attention to costs than ever.

“The sudden acceleration in the trajectory of enterprise remote working trajectory, from ‘nice to have’ to ‘essential,’ is driving global IT investments in real-time collaboration with virtual teams, business continuity and data security,” said Rich Weber, president of Panzura.

Due to the acquisition, Weber, formerly chief product officer, now serves as president of Panzura. The company promoted Jason Luehrs to CFO. Chereskin brought on serial entrepreneur Stelfox as CEO and executive chairman (some partners may remember her from Zebra Technologies). Patrick Harr and Steve Morgan, who led Panzura, left to pursue “their next cloud ventures,” Panzura said.

Panzura Talks Channel Strategy

Panzura already teams with several MSPs and resellers. Yet as it works to expand market share, it wants to add more partners to sell Freedom cloud storage. To enable that, Panzura plans to make Freedom easier to implement, and to improve its training and certification, among other initiatives.

“That is all the No. 1 goal of Panzura today,” Stelfox said.

Why? Organizations outside the Fortune 1000s are committing to hybrid cloud strategies. And as SMBs, midmarket firms, nonprofits and others turn not only to private, public and multiple clouds, they depend on integrators, VARs and managed service providers to handle their environments.

“That’s where the channel is great,” Stelfox said. “They know the buyers, the end users and support them already.”

Panzura only started its channel program about two years ago. Yet is the largest area of growth within the company, Stelfox said.

To support the demand, Panzura continues to develop its initiatives. For starters, it now offers version 8 of the Freedom platform.

“So the good news is the burden on the channel partner to get up to speed is well-documented and well-traversed,” Stelfox said. “It’s actually not that tough in terms of implementation. We’ve had partners sign up and not just close an end-user deal but implement it within three months. It’s pretty quick.”

Overall, partners will speed up their own processes by understanding cloud and cloud infrastructure. But they don’t even have to be that knowledgeable.

“We can work around it,” Stelfox said.

To wit, Panzura employs an always-on customer service team throughout the world.

“All of this can be done remotely; no one is required to be onsite,” Stelfox. “It’s all over phone and the cloud.”

Certainly that marks a big plus in a pandemic when officials discourage people from being in close quarters with one another.

In addition, Panzura provides a full training and certification suite, depending on partner level and commitment.

“Then we also offer marketing funds, all the normal full channel program kinds of things, all based on the level of sales,” Stelfox said

And while Panzura has an inside sales team, those staff do not compete with …

… the channel.

“With every deal, we try to put as much as possible through a channel partner,” Stelfox said. “I’ve done this before. I came out of Zebra and learned that lesson.”

Now, with Stelfox at the helm, and the company still facing an unprecedented global event, Panzura remains focused on over-communicating with partners.

“It’s a lot of Zoom calls and webinars, group meetings, to try to get people up to speed,” Stelfox said. “People are looking at [Freedom] now for a remote workforce. Their workers have to get to whatever they need whenever they need it.”

In fact, COVID-19 has created a boon, at least for Panzura.

“Last quarter we had our biggest quarter ever, we sold our biggest deal ever, and we had the most productive partner ever,” Stelfox said. “All the firsts literally came in the middle of a pandemic, and it just shows you the time is right for this kind of solution, which is why we love the Profile investment.”

Panzura resellers include World Wide Technology, Technologent, CBTS and Sirius, among several others. Channel Futures also reached out to some Panzura partners for comment on the recent acquisition but got no responses.

‘Invested for the Long Haul’

Partners like to know that the companies they team with will be around for years to come. Stelfox says not to worry.

“The cool thing about this acquisition is Profile Capital Management is a family office,” Stelfox said. “It’s one individual, Ben Chereskin, and there’s no time limit on the money. Unlike others in the space with private equity or venture capital money, that all times out. We don’t have that issue. …He’s invested for the long haul.”

Even better, Stelfox added, Chereskin, who in February left CDW’s board, “is a big proponent of the channel. … He loves the space and cloud and channel.”

Chereskin spoke of his belief in Panzura in a May 8 press release.

“Now’s the time to invest in cloud storage, and Panzura…is the right company to invest in for rapid growth,” he said. “We are convinced that Panzura’s market trajectory will accelerate as businesses adjust to the new normal of remote working.”

Chereskin is so sure of that, in fact, that he went through with the deal even as state COVID-19 restrictions loomed.

“We turned over the letter of intent three days before California shut down,” Stelfox said. “[Chereskin has] been through many downturns — this is not his first.”

It’s not Stelfox’s first downturn rodeo either, and that gives her reason for optimism in an otherwise challenging time. Still, she said some aspects of the realities of 2020 cause some angst.

“The toughest part is the lack of in-person communication with employees and partners,” she said. “It makes me sad; I’m a people person.”

Read more about:

VARs/SIsMSPs

About the Author(s)

Kelly Teal

Contributing Editor, Channel Futures

Kelly Teal has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist, editor and analyst, with longtime expertise in the indirect channel. She worked on the Channel Partners magazine staff for 11 years. Kelly now is principal of Kreativ Energy LLC.

Free Newsletters for the Channel
Register for Your Free Newsletter Now

You May Also Like