Boasting a price point that is 70% lower than Rackspace (according to the company), wholesale Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider Artisan Infrastructure has rolled out a new cloud storage offering aimed at MSPs and other resellers. The cloud storage product will be supported from the Artisan Infrastructure virtual private cloud platform, called Cornerstone, and appears to be positioning itself (and its channel partners) for a price war against other public cloud vendors.
While public cloud vendors have been waging their own PR battle thanks to the U.S. government PRISM program, Artisan appears to be taking the opposite approach to its channel base of MSPs by enticing them with a) an alternative to public cloud, and b) enough margin room to entice MSP customers. Artisan's price point will be less than .03 cents per gigabyte.
Some early adopter MSPs to the Artisan approach are quite positive in their outlook. “Artisan Infrastructure’s wholesale model will allow us to build, manage, and own our own cloud storage solutions without the cost and complexity of operating our own data center, said Nathaniel Gates, President, Cloud49. “The company’s approach has simplified the delivery of cloud services, thereby expanding the window of opportunity for partners like ourselves.”
The approach Artisan is taking does make sense, especially when you take into consideration the amount of pushback public cloud vendors have been taking since the PRISM story broke some months ago. Companies like Artisan, if they can make assurances to MSPs and customers alike about their own security and privacy controls, should be optimally positioned to ride this wave of private cloud sentiment far into the future.
