OREANDA-NEWS. February 11, 2016. The enterprise is increasingly turning to cloud to achieve business advantage, but finding the top services and IT expertise needed to successfully jump into or expand in the cloud can be difficult. Meanwhile, service providers in the crowded and competitive cloud market are constantly seeking new revenue streams and avenues for growth. And as the global interconnection platform for the world’s leading businesses, we are always searching out new opportunities to expand our leadership.

The Equinix Channel Partner Program accelerates everyone’s goals.

The program gives service providers a platform for innovation and collaboration, on which they can create and deliver the compelling cloud and IT services and insights enterprises are seeking.

Our program recruits exceptional managed service providers, network service providers, solution providers and system integrators to both resell and refer Equinix services. Our partners also get access to the unparalleled mix of network, IT and cloud providers on our global interconnection platform. This gives them a chance to build their own, powerful portfolio of cloud services and other IT solutions and begin selling them to enterprise customers.

At the same time, by enabling our partners to use our platform to better serve the enterprise, we hope to increase our share of the enterprise market. So we see the partner program as a three-way street with shared benefits. As we approach the anniversary of the program’s launch last March, it’s a good time to review the program’s objectives and why we think it’s poised for further growth.

Expansion in EMEA

As director of EMEA channel sales and alliances for Equinix, I’m charged with building a channel model that supports Equinix’s growth and expansion in EMEA. Those efforts recently hit a milestone with the Telecity acquisition, which made us Europe’s leading interconnection company.

Ultimately, we believe the best reason to become a partner with Equinix is Equinix itself. In other words, once people see what we bring to the market, the decision becomes something of a “no-brainer.” Consider:

  • We have by far the largest global reach of any data center provider in the world. Many of our partners are looking to become multi-national companies. We can host their equipment in reliable, secure facilities in 40 markets on five continents, so they can reach markets anywhere.
  • We offer access to 1,300 network providers inside Equinix, including all the top-tier companies. This gives our partners the freedom to easily switch providers and devise the most efficient network routes to meet the needs of whatever end users they’re targeting.
  • Equinix hosts 500-plus cloud providers, including big names like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM SoftLayer, Cisco, NetApp and Google Cloud Platform. Being associated with the world’s most prominent cloud companies is a benefit our partners can promote to their own customers.

Equinix partners can also take advantage of our proven interconnection solutions like Performance Hub, which enables customers to deploy IT at any of Equinix’s 145 data centers worldwide, and Cloud Exchange, which offers instant, simultaneous access to multiple clouds from a single port. Together, Equinix’s services and interconnection platform offer flexibility and the tools to design innovative solutions that meet the range of enterprise cloud and IT needs

Partners for the Future

It’s worth emphasizing that the global reach and network- and cloud-density that benefit our customers from the second they become partners are long-established Equinix strengths that won’t fade.

We’ve spent \\$7.5 billion to build the most agile and dependable interconnection platform in the word. Being part of it can help our partners expand their margins and create new revenue streams now. But it also sustains them as they plan for a future that we believe will be driven by new business with the enterprise, and that we know we can reach together.

Learn more about the Equinix Channel Partners Program.