By Anil SharmaTMCnet Contributor
Intermedia (News – Alert), a Microsoft Exchange hosting provider, has announced a new member of its partner program, Brasoftware, one of the software distributors in Brazil with over 80,000 customers.
Brasoftware, which is an Intermedia Private Label Partner, offers Intermedia’s hosted services — including Exchange 2010 — under its own brand, setting pricing and controlling customer billing. Intermedia maintains, monitors, and upgrades all hardware and software.
Brasoftware invested over $300,000 to develop a Software-as-a-Service, or “SaaS (News – Alert),” portal to market and distribute its new hosted offerings; localize Intermedia’s administrative tools for Brazilian Portuguese; and publically launch sales of hosted Exchange, hosted Office Communications Server, or “OCS,” and hosted SharePoint.
Officials with Intermedia said that in addition to major distributors such as Brasoftware, the company’s 4,000 private label partners include small- and mid-size managed service providers, or “MSPs,” that target businesses in their city or region.
These MSPs launch hosted services with minimal or no upfront investment, often targeting their existing customer base.
“SaaS presents a strong growth opportunity in Latin America because it lowers our customers’ costs and maintenance requirements — while eliminating the need for large upfront purchases,” said Jorge Sukarie, chairman and president, Brasoftware, in a statement.
Sukarie said that the company wants to help businesses here make the transition successfully, starting with small- and medium-sized firms — a section of the market Intermedia is intimately familiar with.
He said that by partnering with Intermedia, the company can offer Exchange 2010 and its enhanced user experience to the thousands of legacy Exchange environments in the company’s region.
“Intermedia also enable us to surround Exchange 2010 with a complete set of hosted communications offerings and tools that assure a smooth migration for customers,” Sukarie said.
Robert Leibholz, senior vice president of sales and business development, Intermedia, said that the Brazilian market represents a significant part of Intermedia’s strategy in Latin America.
“The partnership with Brasoftware combines Intermedia’s leadership in hosted services technologies with Brasoftware’s expertise in sales and support. We are proud to be working together,” Leibholz said.
Anil Sharma is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anil’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire
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