AppRiver’s popular Microsoft Office 365 productivity suite is helping channel partners capture top-line revenue, expand their service offerings and grow their cloud businesses. Since the company introduced two-tier pricing last year, it has seen a 240 percent increase in the total number of AppRiver partners engaged to sell Office 365. Revenue growth and total number of Office 365 seats sold also grew by 330 percent.

The company has a close, long-standing relationship with Microsoft and is currently one of only a handful of Office 365 syndicated hosting partners in the world. That partnership grants immediate access to expertise, support and insight into the Microsoft product roadmap, which adds significant value to AppRiver’s own partner community.

“There is a real financial incentive for partners to include Office 365 in their product portfolio because demand is on the rise,” said Scott Paul, senior director of sales, AppRiver. “More and more businesses understand that they can move to the cloud and increase productivity for less cost, without having to give up familiar Microsoft applications.”

All Mountain Technologies (AMT) recently signed on to resell AppRiver’s Office 365 to help maximize their customers’ technology investments.

“About half of the time, customers come to AMT wanting to learn more about Office 365 and the ways it can increase business productivity and enhance bottom line,” explains Jonathan Zapp, director of sales and marketing at All Mountain Technologies. “The rest of the time, we recommend Office 365 to clients who use outdated services or hardware that’s reaching end of life.”

There are several reasons why Office 365 from AppRiver is unique:

True On-Demand, Pay-As-You-Go Service: Office 365 from AppRiver allows partners to own the billing process, generate additional revenue and sell/service customers in a way that makes sense for their business. The company does not require minimum packaging spends or annual commitments, thereby allowing partners to mix and match services for specific users (and adjust customer consumption or user count) without fear of penalty. Maintain Renewal Margin: With AppRiver, the margins are preserved even after renewal and throughout the life of the customer relationship. Account Maintenance: Partners can manage all Office 365 services from a single console to add users, manage groups and send maintenance reminders and notices. AppRiver will maintain the Microsoft Partner of Record status and will not interfere or break the record without first receiving partner consent. Partner Certification: Partners can learn the ropes at AppRiver University and earn certifications in both the sale and support of Office 365 once they have demonstrated mastery of required skill sets. Phenomenal Care™: High-touch customer support is available from trained employees24 hours a day, every day.

The AppRiver Phenomenal Care model has become a hallmark of the company’s success, and includes expert migration assistance to anyone who needs it. That’s important because migrations can be difficult, slow and problematic. And migrating to a new cloud email service only compounds the difficulty. Perhaps that is why Gartner recently found that organizations will likely need vendor-supplied support to resolve migration issues.

“It was difficult, and often time consuming, to work with Microsoft Support,” said Zapp. “AMT takes pride in our Always-On™ Managed Services and so it was a no-brainer to choose AppRiver for its consistently great 24/7 support. We operate in a close-knit community where word of mouth and reputation go a long way. AppRiver’s swift conflict-resolution time has actually helped to increase our bottom line because customers trust that they can leave their IT worries with us and we will work through any technical issue before it impacts business operation.”

To date, AppRiver has successfully resolved 100 percent of the customer-facing support interactions for Office 365.

To learn more about AppRiver’s Office 365 or how to become a partner, please visit www.appriver.com.

About AppRiverAppRiver is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider offering award-winning email and Web security solutions to businesses of all sizes. Understanding the need to protect networks from today's increasingly complex IT threats, AppRiver offers businesses a comprehensive, yet affordable subscription-based solution that incorporates the latest spam and virus protection, email encryption and Web security on the market. In addition, the company provides a complete managed service for Microsoft Exchange, as well as a bundled Office 365 solution. Since its inception, AppRiver has sustained an impressive 93% customer retention rate while growing its customer base to more than 47,000 companies and 8.5 million mailboxes worldwide. The company maintains offices in Florida, Georgia, Texas, New York, Switzerland and Spain, and is led by an Ernst & Young Florida Entrepreneur of the Year award winner. For more information, please visit www.appriver.com.