I have to give credit to Cbeyond. It plays to win (versus being conservative and playing “not to lose”). I’ve tracked this company for many years and Cbeyond is always innovating and taking an aggressive posture in the SMB community. The “new” Cbeyond 2.0 is no different. The “old” Cbeyond was primarily focused on delivering high-quality telecom solutions to the SMB market via an aggressive direct sales model and a channel partner program. But times have changed and Cbeyond has reinvented itself to be a total solutions company with both voice and data packages. I wouldn’t say Cbeyond was or is necessarily known for being the lowest cost provider but it doesn’t have to be. It provides value. Read on.
Pictured: The Cbeyond gang with customers at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 event in Washington DC.
Cbeyond 2.0 is investing more aggressively in its partner program than other competitors. Essentially, it will work with its partners to cultivate and nurture leads that result in bona fide business opportunities. That is, Cbeyond will provide you with business opportunities and work with you to fulfill the work.
It’s also reaching out to the broader community. It has entered into a marketing alliance with Microsoft to offer U.S.-based Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Value-Added Resellers (VARs) the option to deploy their SMB customers' solutions in Cbeyond's cloud. Through the alliance, Cbeyond will incentivize MSPs and VARs to move their customers to the cloud and showcase the most advanced, enterprise-class cloud computing capabilities of Microsoft's Cloud OS technologies, including Windows Server, Hyper-V and System Center.
In support of the program, Cbeyond is providing MSP and VAR customers with TotalCloud® Partner Edition based on the Microsoft Cloud OS technologies. TotalCloud Partner Edition is an advanced cloud platform enabling private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments based on Microsoft Windows Server 2012, a multi-tenant datacenter and cloud infrastructure that simplifies deployment of IT services.
"By embracing Cloud OS technologies, Cbeyond has the ability to provide unified management, single identity across clouds with integrated virtualization, enabling organizations to shift to more efficiently managing datacenter resources as a whole," said Aziz Benmalek, general manager, Partner Hosting & Cloud Services at Microsoft Corp. "Building upon our existing technical and business relationship, Cbeyond remains a key Microsoft partner in embracing our Cloud OS and in giving a much wider audience of customers, especially SMBs, access to our hybrid cloud technology," he added.
"Our TotalCloud Partner Edition platform is all about giving more choices to MSPs and VARs," said Paul Carmody, chief marketing officer, Cbeyond. "Enabling access to Microsoft's robust, cutting-edge Cloud OS infrastructure is a valuable option for these partners to serve their SMB clients with enterprise-class services."
"The new Cbeyond-Microsoft marketing alliance and product offering lets us address the needs of more SMBs seeking to create and maintain the right technology infrastructure for their business," said Greg Treanor, vice president, RoseBud Technologies, an SMB IT consultancy. RoseBud Technologies, a Cbeyond Channel Partner, is a designated Microsoft Silver Certified Partner and Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Partner.
TotalCloud Partner Edition is a key aspect of Cbeyond 2.0, the company's business strategy that focuses heavily on cloud and other advanced technologies. Previously released Cbeyond 2.0 product platforms are TotalCloud Data Center, TotalCloud Phone System and TotalCloud Foundation.
Cbeyond's expanding portfolio of TotalCloud computing services helps SMBs and other businesses transition fully or partially to the cloud through highly customizable solutions that are efficient, flexible and scalable. Customers benefit from such features as multiple virtual computer and storage bundles, security options for compliance support, integrated network connectivity and intuitive self-service applications. Optional services included dedicated and shared storage, or dedicated physical services to create private or hybrid cloud deployment.
