Artisan Becomes Neverfail to Extend Cloud Portfolio

Aiming to expand the scope of its cloud computing services, Artisan Infrastructure announced it acquired Vertiscale to obtain a workspace-as-a-service (WaaS) platform. At the same time, Artisan Infrastructure also announced that it is changing its name to Neverfail.

Chris Weiser, channel chief for managed service providers at Neverfail, said that because it has expanded its portfolio, the time had come to rebrand the company as a whole.

“We provide business continuity, workspace-as-a-service and now a new phone service,” said Weiser. “We’re moving way beyond just infrastructure-as-a-service.”

The Neverfail portfolio is now a lot stickier with end customers than simply providing access to a compute platform in the cloud, he added.

Vertiscale, which like Artisan Infrastructure is based in Austin, Tex., had been a customer of Artisan. Jon Senger, chief architect of Neverfail and formerly CTO and co-founder of Vertiscale, said that while the company’s WaaS platform could be deployed on any cloud platform, customers frequently wanted Vertiscale to provide access to a more turnkey cloud service. In those case Senger said, Vertiscale opted for Artisan because, as an IaaS provider, it was more willing to customize its cloud platform to meet the needs of Vertiscale.

“Partnering with Artisan helps speed the deal flow,” said Senger.

In general, WaaS is rapidly becoming a growing category in the cloud because IT organizations need a simpler way to deliver application services to multiple types of devices. Other approaches such as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and virtual private networks (VPNs) are too complex and costly to implement, said Senger.

In fact, Untangled Solutions CEO Chris Johnson said it was the simplicity of that model that attracted the solution provider to Artisan Infrastructure and then Vertiscale. Untangled Solutions itself this week was acquired by Wheelhouse IT, a provider of managed services.

“We don’t have access to Level 3 engineers,” said Johnson. “As a partner of both companies, this deal will give us one throat to choke.”

Just as significant, Johnson added that partnering with a major cloud service provider, such as Amazon Web Services, would have resulted in less control over the IT environment. In contrast, Artisan Infrastructure showed a willingness to let Untangled Solutions customize the IaaS as they see fit for each individual customer.

Although it’s too early to say just how a wave of mergers and acquisitions across the cloud space just might play out, as customers continue to demand access to simpler IT solutions in the age of the cloud, the days of selling isolated services may soon be coming to a close.

Mike Vizard has covered IT for more than 25 years, and has edited or contributed to a number of tech publications, including InfoWorld, CRN and eWeek. He currently blogs daily for IT Business Edge and contributes to CIOinsight, Channel Insider and Baseline.