Storage management software vendor Acronis this week announced that it is moving to a 100 percent channel go-to-market strategy and funneling $7 million worth of leads to channel partners.

The move marks a significant change for Acronis, which previously counted 70 percent of sales through its channel partners and 30 percent direct.

The move to 100-percent channel is crucial to the continuing growth of Acronis, according to Michael Coney, president and general manager for Acronis in the Americas. Coney says the previous model in the Americas was more complicated while overseas the company ran a more channel centric go-to-market strategy.

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But now that Acronis is committing to 100 percent channel, the company will be increasing partner benefits. For example, a new deal registration program gives up to 30 points back to Gold and Silver authorized partners on deals of $15,000 or higher who register deals with Acronis through Nov. 30.

In addition, Acronis says that partners are guaranteed 10 points just for registering the deal, even if it falls through.

“If partners want to make margin, we tell a good story,” says Coney.

Acronis says it will also offer a better MDF program and lead generation using SEO and SEM marketing efforts on Google.

“We will be funneling leads to channel partners directly,” says Coney. “It’s a Channel First program that includes a turnkey channel marketing program that channel partners can use. Plus they can leverage our channel marketing group here.”

Acronis has about 1,200 authorized partners, 100 Silver partners and 50 Gold or Premier partners. While Coney says the number of partners will likely remain unchanged, Acronis is looking to move authorized partners up into the higher tiers.

Acronis works with distributor Tech Data in a two-tier channel strategy.

Acronis offers storage management software that runs in Windows and Linux environments.

Acronis recently announced the Acronis Backup and Recovery 10 portfolio of products which offers software-based data deduplication, better operations manageability and agentless backup for VMware host platforms.