Pulsant adds edge and multi-cloud capabilities for the channel

Pulsant has expanded its offering to enable channel partners to develop and deliver edge and multi-cloud opportunities to clients, through its partnership with Zayo Group Inc. Leading the strategic drive will be newly appointed industry veteran Rob Darby as Director of Channel Sales, the latest in a series of Pulsant senior management hires.

The rapid growth in IoT and connected devices is significantly increasing data volumes, driving a need for robust edge strategies. In response, Pulsant has invested £8 million into its edge infrastructure, connecting its 10 UK data centres using Zayo’s high-performance fibre network. Through Pulsant’s colocation services, channel organisations can expand the multi-cloud services they take to market and prime themselves for incipient edge opportunities. This is enabled through an agile, high-capacity and low-latency network capable of delivering sub 5 millisecond latency, covering 97% of the UK.

Reporting to the CSO, Darby will spearhead Pulsant’s channel proposition, working with channel partners to help develop their services and connect customers to its national network. Rob’s appointment follows other senior hires, including Stephen Ball as Chief Sales Officer and Simon Michie as Chief Technology Officer in 2020, as Pulsant CEO Rob Coupland continues to build and establish his new management team.

Darby joins Pulsant from channel-only IT services provider Comms-Care where he served as Sales Director then Commercial Director. Over 14 years, he took a team of two people and approximately £2m in revenue to a team of over 40 bringing in annuity revenues from the channel of over £55m. Following Ingram Micro’s acquisition of Comms-Care in 2016, Darby oversaw the transition as Commercial Director across both organisations before taking a non-executive role at another growing service provider.

With many organisations unready to retire legacy infrastructure in its entirety, there are growing opportunities for the channel to provide multi-cloud solutions that remove the complexity of joining up on-premise and cloud environments. Pulsant’s hybrid cloud offering will help channel organisations to successfully bridge that gap. Whether their customers require hybrid, public or private cloud solutions, channel partners can offer the right solution connected with some of the fastest networks and a choice of some of highest performing data centres in the UK.

Darby comments: “We recognise the huge emerging opportunities for channel organisations through the exponential growth of data from connected devices. This is resulting in an ever-growing need for edge computing, high capacity and low latency networks, and multi-cloud strategies. Our aim is to be the go-to provider of colocation, cloud and networking services to the UK channel and the formation of my team and our partnership with Zayo positions us perfectly to be exactly that.”