As part of the Arrow Fusion Cloud Services initiative, Arrow plans to host SaaS applications for VARs in Terremark‘s data centers. Lee Fawcett, VP of Arrow Fusion, described the Arrow-Terremark relationship and Arrow’s broader cloud and IT services efforts earlier today (see FastChat Video, left).
The video describes multiple components within the Arrow Fusion Cloud Services strategy. But for this written blog, I’m zeroing in on Arrow’s SaaS and Cloud efforts. That effort involves Arrow exploring multiple vertical market applications — for instance, health care and retail applications. As VARs request specific vertical market applications, Arrow will consider hosting them in Terremark’s data centers, says Fawcett. In the retail market, for instance, there could be an opportunity for Arrow VARs to offer complete IT as a service — that is, SaaS on the back-end and hardware as a service (HaaS) on the front end.
Overall, Fawcett says Arrow is pursuing a cloud aggregator strategy — providing best-in-class SaaS and IaaS (infrastructure as a service) options to VARs. In some ways, the Arrow strategy sounds similar to Ingram Micro’s cloud aggregator effort. Both Ingram and Arrow, for instance, have partner relationships with NetEnrich — which specializes in NOC (network operations center) and closet-to-cloud services.
Still, Arrow’s determination to launch third-party vertical market apps in Terremark’s data center could be a differentiating point. However, I wonder just how many vertical market apps are on Arrow’s target list for hosting. By their very nature, some vertical market applications may not have broad enough appeal to Arrow’s channel partners. But on the flip side, retail applications could be broad enough to gain mass appeal with Arrow’s partners.
I’ve got to catch a flight, so that’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with more comprehensive thoughts from Fawcett and Arrow ECS North America President Sean Kerins. Both Fawcett and Kerins shared the broader Arrow strategy with me during an Arrow open house earlier today in Atlanta, Ga.
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