Open Source IT Monitoring
Launch of GroundWork Partner Network Brings Open Source IT Monitoring to the Channel
GroundWork opens huge revenue opportunity for systems integrators and value-added resellers in underserved mid-market
San Francisco, CA —August 15, 2006 — GroundWork Open Source, Inc., the leader in open source-based IT operations management, today announced a new global partner network targeting VARs (Value Added Resellers) and SIs (systems integrators). The channel program presents an opportunity for partners to engage mid-market customers with a fully-supported open source-based IT monitoring solution that is dramatically less expensive than high-end enterprise solutions like HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol and CA Unicenter.
With over 150 customers and 2,000 installations, GroundWork is rapidly disrupting the economics of IT monitoring and management. GroundWork's flagship product, GroundWork Monitor Professional, integrates best-of-breed open source projects into fully-supported, enterprise-grade suite for IT infrastructure monitoring covering most typical environments out of the box. "By bringing open source IT monitoring to the channel, we believe the GroundWork Partner Network will benefit a large number of the channel's mid-market customers as proprietary alternatives are too complex and too expensive," said Tony Barbagallo, VP of product management and marketing at GroundWork Open Source. "We have made a significant investment in a partner program that gets VARs and Systems Integrators up to speed quickly and provides tremendous revenue upside."
The GroundWork Partner Network provides VARs and SIs with generous margins on subscriptions to GroundWork Monitor Professional, and more importantly, 100% of the upside from all deployment and configuration services, including installation, configuration and customer training.
"Because GroundWork is open source, and because of the way that it's designed -- it gives e4e the ability to easily customize each installation to our customers' unique business requirements," said Somshankar Das, President and CEO of e4e, Inc. "Customers are tired of the one-size-fits-all, Big 4 approach to IT operations management, and we're getting a tremendous response to the GroundWork approach from our customer base."
The GroundWork Partner Network places a premium on technical training, sales and marketing support, and subsequent back-end technical support for its partners. At the onset of each partner engagement, GroundWork offers a four-day instructor-led technical training course and partners are then provided priority access to dedicated GroundWork professional service engineers for customer installation and support assistance. Partners are also assigned dedicated account managers and are supported via GroundWork-driven marketing campaigns, a secure partner extranet, and professionally developed sales materials.
"There are certain criteria that play into the vendor partners we pursue from both a technology and business side," said Jean-Guy Roberge, VP of Customer Relations at Revolution Linux, a Canadian IT infrastructure solution provider. "If we're going to stand behind a technology, we need to make sure it stands up on its own. Is it flexible? Can it scale? At the same time, we are laser-focused on providing our customers a superior, yet cost-effective solution. GroundWork satisfies all of these issues that are so important to us while providing solid domain expertise that we can leverage with our customers."
"As we're involved in a number of open source integration and installation projects, oftentimes simultaneously, we need solutions that are easy to implement while meeting the business and IT requirements of our customers," said Eric Welch, Network Monitoring Practice Manager at Novacoast, Inc. "GroundWork's IT infrastructure and network monitoring solution takes care of all the heavy lifting usually associated with open source installation, configuration and management at a fraction of the cost of the large proprietary alternatives."
GroundWork is currently seeking regional partners with deep domain expertise in IT infrastructure and network monitoring. Partners must also have experience working in Linux and open source environments. Interested GroundWork Partner Network candidates can learn more by visiting www.groundworkopensource.com/partners or by sending an email to [email protected].
About GroundWork
San Francisco-based GroundWork Open Source, Inc. (www.groundworkopensource.com) is the leader in the fast-growth market for open source IT operations management software. The company integrates, enhances and develops leading open source software to deliver comprehensive IT operations management solutions. With GroundWork solutions, enterprises leverage the flexibility and low cost of open source tools to achieve enterprise-level availability, performance and operational efficiency at a fraction of the cost of commercial software. GroundWork customers represent a variety of industries, including manufacturing, government, financial services, education, and high technology. GroundWork investors are Mayfield and Canaan Partners.
Contact:
Ray George
Page One PR
[email protected]
650-922-3825
