Credit: Photo by George Bakos on Unsplash
Pure Storage's channel chief for Australia and New Zealand has called for a reality check in the consumption market as more vendors tout their as-a-service (aaS) offerings.
Adam Rosham, who has served as Pure Storage's channel sales director since 2015, said the term is becoming easily stamped on vendor solutions that are in fact long-term leases and not actually based on pure consumption.
Speaking to ARN, Rosham described 'aaS' as "flavour of the month", but is often overused as a marketing tool.
"Many of the big vendors have all got finance arms. And so, you know, a lot of the time and as-a-service is really just another way of [describing] a lease," he said.
"It's very different from ours: we don't run the client-side; we're not offering our services that in any sort of way, shape or form that looks or acts like the lease. So it's very different in my perspective to what I've seen in the past."
Pure Storage released its cloud and consumption offering, Pure as-a-service in 2016 and has been on the hunt for local partners to sell it ever since. Originally known as ES2, the offering was rebranded to Pure as-a-Service last year.
"Out there, there are a lot of 'as-a-services' that based on a lease where ours is not," he continued. "Ours is just a pure consumption where we have products -- so there's no transfer of title, there are no issues with the reporting and balance sheets.
"We've really seen that take off during COVID-19. And I think that will continue. My feeling is that will continue to grow."
He added: "The next type of purchasing is changing to as-a-service or cloud, like consumption models, whether they're an actual cloud provider, an MSP or even from a vendor.
"I think being able to purchase on-demand in a way that fits the application and the load of data without having to commit to traditional or long-term contracts is the way forward."
Since the pandemic, Pure Storage has ramped up its remote deployments, with Rosham claiming the products’ simplicity helped onboard new customers
Pure Storage now has 100 partners in Australia and New Zealand, 30 of those who are managed service providers.
Rather than focus on growing this number, Rosham's strategy now centre on supporting and upskilling its existing network, particularly the technical resources within partner organisations.
Last year, the vendor launched an invite-only partner program for channel professionals who are “leaders” in either technical sales or implementation.
Named the WaveMaker program, the scheme offered partners access to exclusive events and offer dedicated content and training to boost their technical capabilities.
"Our program is based around focus partners, and even more focused sellers and technical people within them," he said.
"So we very much work and try to work with a selected number of partners rather than a huge amount. It's been a model for a long time."
