[April 27, 2015] |
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Cloud Service Commerce Leader AppDirect Expands European Footprint to Drive Global Cloud Economy
Today at the Telco
Cloud Forum in London, AppDirect,
the leader in cloud service commerce, announced several business
milestones that support the company's European expansion and drive
further adoption of its services by European businesses.
Strengthening its foothold in the UK, Western Europe and the
Nordic-Baltic regions, AppDirect has added new services for partners
Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft, Swisscom and TeliaSonera (News - Alert) AB. The company
has also added music streaming innovator Soundtrack Your Brand and its
product Spotify Business to its developer ecosystem and
AppDirect-powered TeliaSonera marketplace. With the opening of its new
London office to support 300% team growth, AppDirect has hired former
BCSG and Telefónica Digital executive Tim Marsden to lead Europe, Middle
East and Africa (EMEA) operations.
"Since our inception, our vision has been making software accessible
worldwide and powering the global economy through cloud service
commerce. The momentum and success we have experienced in Europe
represent key milestones in making this vision a reality," said Daniel
Saks, co-founder and co-CEO, AppDirect. "Working together with our
global cloud ecosystem partners, we are helping businesses realize the
value of cloud services across the globe and transforming the experience
for providers, developers and business end users."
AppDirect is the catalyst helping businesses go to market effectively in
the cloud. The company unites providers, developers and business end
users of cloud services into a single ecosystem, making it easy for
businesses to find, buy, manage, and monitor cloud services from a
central location. At Telco Cloud Forum this week, AppDirect will
host a panel of European cloud innovators and global technology leaders
including DocuSign, GoDaddy, Microsoft (News - Alert) and TeliaSonera - in a discussion
on cloud service commerce best practices. AppDirect's VP of Worldwide
Sales Richard Dufty will moderate the panel. Dufty will also speak in a
session on cloud monetization strategies.
2015 European Milestones:
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Experienced 300% growth across its European team, adding new General
Manager Marsden to lead EMEA operations.
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Opened offices in London and France, expanded teams at its Munich and
Stockholm offices.
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Secured strategic deals with software developers, adding new apps
and/or distribution opportunities across its cloud service ecosystem:
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DocuSign: A partner in the AppDirect ecosystem since 2013,
the most widely used Digital Transaction Management platform and
e-signature solution in the world can now be bundled as a
value-add service for Microsoft partners worldwide.
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GoDaddy: The world's largest technology provider dedicated
to small businesses is using AppDirect's services to offer domain
registration that can be tightly bundled with Microsoft Office 365
for Microsoft partners across the globe.
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Microsoft: AppDirect launched its Express program for the
Microsoft channel to provide technology and tools for Microsoft
Cloud Solutin Providers (CSP) worldwide and help syndication
partners transition to the CSP program.
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Spotify (News - Alert) Business: For the first time, Swedish business
customers will have access to music streaming from Soundtrack Your
Brand's product Spotify Business through the AppDirect-powered
TeliaSonera marketplace. Spotify Business is developed, marketed
and sold through Soundtrack Your Brand, with Spotify as co-owner
and investor.
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Secured new business with leading European telecommunications
providers:
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Deutsche Telekom: Launched its second AppDirect-powered
marketplace, Business Marketplace for Enterprise, for its
T-Systems subsidiary. As one of the largest Internet Service
Providers in Europe, Deutsche Telekom has used AppDirect's
services since 2012. Its first AppDirect-powered Business
Marketplace for SMEs now offers over 40 apps, including Microsoft
Office 365, Symantec, iMeet, HiDrive and Sage.
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Swisscom (News - Alert): Now standardized on AppDirect technology for its
entire cloud service distribution for business customers. This is
reducing operational complexity, improving ease of use and
enabling easy bundling of its own communication services with new
cloud services, including Office 365. As one of Switzerland's
largest providers of IT services, Swisscom has used AppDirect's
services since 2012.
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TeliaSonera AB: The first telco in the world to offer
Spotify Business. TeliaSonera is one of the top-five telecom
providers in Europe and has been an AppDirect customer since 2013.
AppDirect is powering its marketplaces Telia AppMarket in Sweden,
Sonera Sovelluskauppa in Finland, and its newest Teo Programeles
verslui in Lithuania.
New GM to Lead EMEA Operations:
As AppDirect's new General Manager and Head of EMEA, Marsden brings
in-depth experience leading new business strategy and development, as
well as driving product management, marketing, sales enablement and
go-to-market strategies for technologies that include global digital
services, cloud and mobile applications and enterprise mobility. Prior
to AppDirect, Marsden led partner engagement for BCSG's cloud service
business. He has also held senior leadership roles driving business and
product development for top tier technology and telecommunications
leaders, including Telefónica Digital, Hewlett-Packard and Easynet Ltd.
(BSkyB).
According to Dufty, who leads AppDirect's sales, business and strategic
development teams across the globe, "With Tim on board, we can fully
support our accelerated growth across Europe and continue to effectively
engage with clients and work together to build cloud monetization
strategies that transform the experience for our partners and their
customers. As a proven leader driving global cloud, digital and mobile
strategies for enterprise clients throughout Europe, the Middle East and
Africa, Tim brings the capabilities to drive our worldwide business
goals forward and make a significant impact on our European operations
while sharing our values and vision."
Supporting Quotes:
"Working with AppDirect, we launched our first Business Marketplace for
SMEs in 2012. Since that time, we have continued to collaborate closely
with the AppDirect team to deliver cloud innovation for our Deutsche
Telekom business customers. AppDirect has provided the platform,
technology and expertise to help us launch our second cloud marketplace
in just three months, build our application catalog and bundle new
applications using AppDirect tools. The company has been a valuable
partner for us through our cloud journey, making technology easy to
consume and bringing unique value to the entire process." -- Dr.
Andre Zehl, VP Cloud Portal Business Marketplace, Deutsche Telekom
"Our strategy is to help businesses all around the globe go fully
digital. The AppDirect platform is turnkey and it allows us to work with
some of the world's leading service providers in reaching those
customers, and do it in a way that is very efficient for our business."
-- Jesper Frederiksen, Vice President and General Manager EMEA,
DocuSign, Inc. (DocuSign®)
"We share AppDirect's passion for enabling access to cloud software
through its vision of simplifying finding and buying cloud apps and
we're excited to join its partner ecosystem. At Soundtrack Your Brand,
we're driving a similar vision for music by building a new music economy
that gives fans access to the music they love and pays artists fairly
for their amazing work. Working with cloud innovators like AppDirect and
TeliaSonera, we can now extend our services to Swedish business
customers and provide them one-click access directly from business app
marketplaces." -- Andreas Liffgarden, Founder and Chairman,
Soundtrack Your Brand (Spotify Business)
"We believe time to market is essential. We run a large, well-oiled
operation but it takes a lot of time, effort and expense to deploy new
services. We rely on AppDirect not only as a marketplace solution, but
as a beach head between our legacy back end systems and the cloud
services in our Swisscom cloud. This gives us economies of scale and
faster time to market. Working with AppDirect, we are putting Swisscom
on a path toward new areas." -- Jonas Krensler, Head of Messaging and
Collaboration, Swisscom
"Prior to working with AppDirect, we had built a similar product
ourselves and determined it was too complex, expensive and difficult to
continue managing. We also didn't get the ROI we needed. We found that
AppDirect met all of our technical requirements, and also important, was
a good match from a personal point of view. The AppDirect team are
thought leaders that we can rely on for support with new technology,
product features and onboarding. In the end, it has to be easy for our
customers to buy cloud services and easy for us to manage. Working
together, we can be a 2.0 telco and a trusted advisor to our customers."
-- David Andreasson, Head of Product and Technology, TeliaSonera
About AppDirect
AppDirect is the cloud service commerce leader making software and
products accessible globally. The AppDirect cloud service commerce
platform unites providers, developers and consumers of cloud services
into a single ecosystem. This makes it easy for businesses to find, buy,
manage and monitor cloud services from a central location and delivers
new opportunities to distribute, sell, and market cloud services.
AppDirect-powered marketplaces, billing and distribution, and reselling
services help providers - including Telstra, ADP, Samsung, Deutsche
Telekom and others - connect millions of businesses to solutions from
Microsoft, Google, Box (News - Alert) and more. AppDirect is headquartered in San
Francisco with global offices. Learn more at www.AppDirect.com.
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