Business & Money | Wednesday 7 January, 2015 1:09 am |

Veeam® Software, the innovative provider of solutions that deliver Availability for the Modern Data Center™, is wrapping up its channel activities in 2014 on a high note with impressive third quarter results in the Middle East, including triple-digit percentage growth in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The company is now preparing for 2015, which is being dubbed “a bumper year” by most channel stakeholders.

Veeam’s Q3 2014 results for the Middle East region demonstrated a year-on-year revenue rise of 158% when compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, revenues for Saudi Arabia rose by 624% over the same period. During the quarter, the company acquired approximately 10,000 new customers, with total paid customers now exceeding 121,500. The number of new enterprise customers grew 108% year-over-year, while revenue from enterprise customers grew 140% over the same period. The latest results marked the 27th consecutive quarter in which the company saw total revenue bookings hit double-digit percentage growth.

“Saudi Arabia is a hugely important market for Veeam Software. We are very committed to our customers and partners and have continually invested in growing our market in the Kingdom,” said Gregg Petersen, Regional Director, Middle East and SAARC, Veeam Software. “Saudi Arabia’s position as the Middle East’s largest IT channel reseller market remains unhampered. Our team has grown significantly over the last year, and with smart cities and other IT infrastructure projects lined up in the next few years, we look forward to more growth in 2015.”

Meanwhile, in September this year, Veeam announced new technical training and certification programs for its reseller ProPartners and end-users in the Middle East. Designed to educate and empower partners to demonstrate their expertise to customers as well as to offer professional services, this move has opened up new revenue streams for Veeam’s channel partners.

“Veeam has shown wonderful commitment to the Kingdom's channel by offering exciting promotions on a quarterly basis. It is keen to invest in its partners by offering free training, certifications and sponsorship for end-user events,” said Hashmat Mahmood, Veeam Product Manager, Aptec, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “Partners feel their business is secure with Veeam’s deal registration program, which also brings them financial benefits. Veeam’s number one priority is to generate quality leads for its partners, to help grow and further develop their businesses. The feedback that I get from the channel is always positive.”

Veeam’s recent win of the Best Partner Accreditation Programme Award is further testament to its extensive efforts in supporting its channel partners to achieve greater success in the Middle East region.

“From our experience with Veeam as a Gold ProPartner for the past two years, we know that Veeam is a partner-focused company,” said Ahmed Al-Masdar, Business Manager at FutureTech. Veeam’s contribution was instrumental to our success in the market. We have full visibility of its strategy and understand our role in its development. Veeam is very transparent as a vendor with its deal registration policy and regular incentives.”

Looking ahead to 2015, industry pundits claim that immediate opportunities for the channel lie in building a knowledge base that will help in identifying opportunities and projects. The fact that virtualization, storage and cloud technologies, which modern data center is built on, are being aggressively adopted in the MENA region is also likely to contribute to the channel’s growth.