Clustered storage vendor wants to expand its current media focus into five new areas

Clustered storage vendor Isilon Systems intends to sign 30 more resellers in three countries by September to support its expansion into five new vertical markets.

The vendor is targeting VARs in the UK, France and Germany. Isilon’s current focus is on the media industry, and the firm now intends to expand into manufacturing, finance, life sciences, insurance and government.

Steve Jenkins, vice-president of EMEA at Isilon Systems, told CRN that the company still intends to focus mainly on enterprise-sized customers.

“The idea is to increase our coverage,” he said. “We want four to five resellers in each vertical. We think we can get at least two VARs in each vertical by the end of September. That’s why we hired VADition [for the UK].”

Earlier this month, Isilon announced that it had signed channel newcomer VADition as its second distributor partner, alongside Zycko, which previously operated exclusively across EMEA for Isilon.

“Two distributors is enough for us,” Jenkins said. “We don’t need any more. Our efforts will be focused on finding the right reseller partners to take us into our new verticals.”

Jenkins claimed that in the government sector Isilom will require VARs that have an existing understanding of the market, both at local and central government levels.

David Galton-Fenzi, group sales director at networking storage distributor Zycko, told CRN that VARs with strong competencies in any of Isilon’s additional verticals could be signed.

“It is a short time frame, but it is achievable [to sign 30 VARs by September],” he said. “Isilon has traditionally been very protective in the way it brings new VARs into vertical markets.”