Acronis Updates Partner Program, Overhauls Licensing
Acronis will unify its products into a single line on March 31 and roll out significant changes to its partner program throughout 2021, the company told partners Tuesday.
Founder Serguei Beloussov described the design goal of the licensing changes as "one policy, one user interface, one license from one vendor." Acronis is aiming to roll up security, e-mail security, file sync and share, management, notarization, backup and disaster recovery under the Acronis Cyber Protect license.
During a virtual 2021 Acronis #CyberFit Partner Kickoff event Tuesday, Beloussov made several commitments for the year ahead, including roadmap transparency and increased investment in support, partner management and joint events/marketing funding.
He also promised to extend the Acronis Cyber Cloud platform beyond its original MSP focus. "Sometime in 2021, we will make sure that all of our partners can use it," he said.
Under the new licensing plan, all baseline capabilities will be provided under the Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud license. Some elements of the license, such as backup, file sync and share, disaster recovery and notary will be delivered in a pay-as-you-go format under the license. Other components of the baseline product are free cyber protection packs -- security, management, data loss prevention and e-mail security, which will launch in the second half of the year. Additional functionality will be delivered through upgrade add-ons known as Advanced Protection Packs. All of the Advanced Packs can be licensed on a per-GB or per-workload licensing model.
"You basically will be able to use Advanced Packs as Lego blocks...for every particular customer," said Yury Averkiev, vice president of product management for apps and services at Acronis.
The initial set of five Advanced Protection Packs that will be available on March 31 will include Advanced Security, Advanced Management, Advanced Backup, Advanced Disaster Recovery and Advanced Files. Packs on the roadmap for later in the year, Averkiev said, include Advanced Email Security, Advanced Data Loss Prevention and Advanced Security.
As examples of the types of features included in the base license versus the Advanced Packs:
- Security features in the base license include a #CyberFit Score, weak password check, vulnerability assessment, active protection, exploit prevention, anti-virus and anti-malware protection, and device control. The Advanced Security Pack includes local signature-based detection to the AV and anti-malware protection, URL filtering, forensic backup, backup scanning for malware-safe recovery, a corporate allowlist and smart protection plans.
- Baseline backup features are file backup, image backup, application backup, network shares backup, backup to cloud storage and backup to local storage. The Advanced Backup Pack adds support for Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange clusters, Oracle DB, SAP HANA, Acronis' data protection map feature and continuous data protection.
Channel Chief Alex Ruslyakov walked partners through the specific changes to the partner program and demonstrated a new partner portal, which he said the company is planning to launch next month.
One major introduction is an Acronis #CyberFit Score that helps determine a partner's level in the Acronis platform. The score operates on a scale of 0 to 33 with up to three points available in each of 11 categories. Registered partners need no points, Authorized Partners need eight points, Gold Partners need 15 points and Platinum partners need 22 points. Meanwhile, a recurring revenue bar for service providers has been newly eliminated at the Gold level, although all Platinum partners must still clear a revenue hurdle.
Other immediate changes to the program for resellers and service providers include an updated referral program, new quarterly performance rebates, increased market development funds, marketing account managers for Platinum partners and enhanced technical support.
Changes planned for later in the year include marketing automation tools, training program enhancements, an on-demand demo lab, leads-sharing for service providers, a partner community forum and the ability to vote to influence the product roadmap.
Posted by Scott Bekker on February 02, 2021