By Tabrez Khan
Managed service provider Netmagic Solutions is looking to channel companies, including resellers, ISVs and service providers, to sell its cloud computing services to customers. The company has recently launched an enhanced version of its cloud computing service—termed Cloud 2.0—based on Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization platform. Cloud 2.0 enables full online provisioning and management. It is also completely elastic, allowing customers to pay as per their usage.
Netmagic plans to OEM its cloud services portal to partners so that they can customize their offerings and sell them to their customers.
“The majority of sales in India happen through relationships, and channel partners have a good connect with customers. Netmagic provides them a good opportunity to offer their own brand of cloud services using our infrastructure. We will have a revenue-sharing arrangement with them,” explained Sharad Sanghi, CEO, Netmagic.
Netmagic plans to target resellers, ISVs and Web development companies in all tier-1 and tier-2 cities in India. It currently has a channel presence in six cities—Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune.
The company has a weak presence in the north and east, so it will be looking to enhance its presence there, informed Sanghi. He said Netmagic will also increase its focus on ISVs because the number of software applications that can be potentially served through the cloud had increased significantly.
According to Sanghi, Netmagic is looking at a 250-300 percent growth in its cloud computing-related revenue over the next two years. Currently, cloud computing services account for just 2 percent of the company’s overall revenues, but it hopes to take this figure to 16 percent over the next two years.
“When we first launched cloud computing services in 2009, we were expecting startups, Web developers and companies looking for DR sites to take up these services,” recalled Sanghi. “Surprisingly, mainstream companies also became our customers, and we were serving them for some applications such as online marketing campaigns, market data feeds, and Webcasts of events like the T20 World Cup—all activities which were business-critical. We have acquired more than 100 customers in just one year, and the growth potential is huge.”
Customers can choose from a fixed monthly billing plan with virtually no variable cost component, or an elastic plan where they can pay per hour based on their usage. For the elastic plan, charges start at Rs 6 per hour per virtual server, in addition to a small nominal monthly charge for persistent storage. Fixed plans start at Rs 3,990 per server per month. |