iiNet goes after SMB & SOHO markets

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 22 May 2008 19:00

IT Industry - Strategy

Australia's third largest ISP, iiNet, has turned its attention to the SMB and SOHO markets with the launch of a new programme for resellers of its recently launched business services.
It has set up a new agent portal where resellers can sign up new customers, view commission payments and other relevant information and claims to be offering "generous trailing commissions." It intends to recruit computer retailers, IT providers and systems integrators that service the small business market to the new programme.

The company has been running a channel programme for several years but had no specific products for the SMB and SOHO market. "The most notable change is the introduction of trailing commission payments," it says. "Agents will be able choose between the upfront payment option or opt for a 10 percent trailing commission over 24 months."

iiNet has recently launched a range of services designed for the SMB and SOHO markets including ADSL2+ with Annex M, and multi-Line VoIP. It says managed VPN and SIP trunking products are in the pipeline along with hosted IP telephony (iiNet's existing VoIP service is provided from a BroadSoft platform, and BroadSoft is a leading provider of the hosted IP telephony applications.
 
For Andy McIntyre iiNet's general manager business, launch of the new portal fulfils a four year ambition. He told iTWire that "I joined iiNet four years ago to build DSLAM and VoIP network and our virtual call centre and I have asking [CEO Michael Malone] all this time to get into the business market."

According to McIntyre, "We have a lot of business customers taking our services but no one was really looking after them." He estimated that about 11,000 of iiNet's DSL customers were businesses and said that he hoped to have a total of 500 resellers in 12 months time. He added: "eighty five percent of small businesses rely on some sort of IT services provider."

iiNet presently has around 130 channel partners signed up under an earlier channel programme, but most of these did not contribute significant revenues, McIntyre said.

iiNet has just acquired Westnet which has around 1000 channel partners, many in regional WA. McIntyre said that, in line with iiNet's stated intent when it announced the acquisition, this programme would continue quite separate from iiNet's new channel programme.