As part of its global expansion strategy, The Netherlands-based Res Software, has opened up a new headquarters in Philadelphia, Pa. to serve the North American channel and end-user markets.
Res Software is a 10-year-old company based in Amsterdam, which offers user workspace management software solutions. Jim Kirby, president of the Americas for Res Software, says the company currently has more than 2,500 customers overall, however he says about 98 per cent of these customers are from Europe.
With the opening of its North American headquarters, Kirby says the company will be able to better expand its partner and customer bases. The new facility will help Res Software drive its sales, marketing and business development initiatives forward, Kirby explained. In addition, the headquarters will also offer support services and product testing facilities for North American partners and customers.
Kirby said the company uses a 100 per cent channel-only sales model and is currently on the lookout for North American channel partners.
“We’re essentially a start-up within an existing company from the standpoint of hiring new people and establishing a new headquarters,” Kirby said. “I’ve already hired business development managers, channel managers and an inside and outside sales organization and we’ve already outlined some partners and SIs (systems integrators) that we think have VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) and a server-based computing practice.”
Kirby explains the goal with Res Software’s solutions, are to help customers transform their desktops into workspaces using its PowerFuse and Wisdom software solutions. PowerFuse enables users to personalize and secure their workspace environments, which are made up of settings such as browser settings, printer settings, application settings, and more. Being able to manage and monitor these things will helps businesses save on their total cost of ownership, on IT administration costs and compliance, Kirby said. Res Wisdom is designed for use in Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows workstation and server environments and enables administration, maintenance, provisioning, automation and integration capabilities, he added.
“Our software helps bring better visibility into the business which allows users to build a better workspace,” Kirby said. “The product also tracks things like licensing to help make sure a company’s compliant.”
The software also works with Citrix, Microsoft and VMware (NYSE: VMW) technologies, which Kirby says is an opportunity for channel partners who already work in these spaces.
Partners receive double digit margins on Res Software solutions, as well as benefits such as joint demand generation activities and co-marketing initiatives, Kirby said.
Prior to joining Res Software last September, Kirby held the position of vice-president of client virtualization at HP (Nasdaq: HPQ), and before that, executive vice-president of sales at Neoware, a thin client technology company that was acquired by HP in 2007.
Although Kirby is based out of the company’s new Philadelphia office, he says he’ll be making trips up to “any location in Canada where (he) can recruit the best partners.”
“I’m anxious to start signing partners up in Canada and I’ll be making myself accessible to our Canadian partners,” Kirby added.
