Ingram Micro and Microsoft today announced an international Comet Competition through which independent software vendors (ISVs) can potentially be awarded as much as $1 million to apply to create or expand a channel program.
Launched at the Microsoft Inspire conference, the competition will recognizee12 ISVs through simultaneous global competitions spanning five continents. The top finalist in each region will receive $100,000 in-kind go-to-market funding. The three runner-ups in each region will be awarded $50,000 in-kind go-to-market funding. The overall competition winner will receive $1,000,000 cash at the Ingram Cloud Summit 2020 conference.
Ingram Micro will not require any equity in the winning ISV contestants, nor require repayment of the awards by the finalists. Only startups that have generated less than $10 million in revenue over the last year are eligible. Applications for the Comet Competition will be accepted August 1 through September 30, 2019. Specific global locations for finalist pitches will be announced when applications open up on August 1.
The overarching goal is to create a contest that will both encourage ISVs to pay more attention to how indirect channel sales wind up making them more profitable over time and expose them to an Ingram Micro distribution channel that simpler than ever for ISVs to engage, says Renée Bergeron, senior vice president of cloud computing for Ingram Micro.
“This is the largest global ISV competition ever launched,” says Bergeron.
The contest comes at a time when Microsoft is trying to convince ISVs delivering software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to host those applications on the Microsoft Azure cloud. As part of that effort, Microsoft via its relationship with Ingram Micro is also trying to highlight to those ISVs the reach and scope of its channel alliances.
Many ISVs have historically relied on direct sales to establish a market presence. The challenge that creates over time is the cost of direct sales adversely impacts the profitability of the ISV. Savvy ISVs have discovered the channel can play a critical role in not only providing access to an installed base of customers but also ensure annual subscriptions are renewed. Most providers of SaaS applications do not turn a profit on a subscription until year two or more of customer engagement. In fact, many startup incubator organizations now stress to ISVs the importance of developing a channel program as early as possible, says Bergeron.
To facilitate that process, Ingram Micro has spent the last several years creating a self-service onboard process for ISVs that goes well beyond simply exposing a set of rigid application programming interfaces (APIs) to the Ingram cloud, adds Bergeron.
It remains to be seen what kind of impact a contest can have on helping to make ISVs savvier about the channel but any initiative that draws more of their attention to the channel certainly can’t hurt.
Be First to Comment