Exclusive Networks expands X-OD

Four months after cutting the ribbon on its as-a-service X-OD platform, Exclusive Networks has expanded the countries that can access the option and brought another vendor on board.

The distributor ran a number of pilots last year, trying out the platform in the UK, France and the Netherlands, with support from Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint and Google Cloud’s Chronicle, which are also on the service from launch.

It officially launched X-OD in October 2020 and is now making the offering available in further European markets: Ireland, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Finland and Austria.

“Wherever we go with X-OD, it is growing fast, now in the Nordics, Iberia and DACH, and across Benelux, UK&I and France,” said Jesper Trolle, CEO of Exclusive Networks. “The global pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated digital transformation more generally, making this proposition even more relevant to business needs.

“Digital customer experience, big data insights and operating expenditure-based consumption are here to stay. And our roadmap is on track to extend the capabilities of X-OD beyond Europe and into every Exclusive operating territory,” he added.

X-OD is part of an ongoing transformation of Exclusive’s business. Speaking at the launch, Trolle said subscriptions accounted for about 20% of the distributor’s revenues, but he hoped X-OD would take that up to 50% in the next couple of years.

At the same time, the distributor has bulked out the vendors available on X-OD with the addition of Fortinet. Back at the October launch, the firm indicated that it was talking to all of its top 10 vendors to get them involved and this is a sign those conversations are starting to reach some conclusions.

“We see fantastic opportunities for the vendors who have committed to X-OD, and are very excited to introduce Fortinet and its extensive portfolio of solutions in these early stages of worldwide roll-out,” added Trolle.

“Together we are empowering channel partners to make a fast, safe and simple transition to subscription-based consumption both for their customers and their own business models, allowing them to sell ‘everything as a service’,” he added.

In response, Patrice Perche, chief revenue officer and executive vice-president support at Fortinet, said it wanted to provide resellers with more consumption options.

“With X-OD, Exclusive has engineered another genuinely innovative contribution to channel dynamics that aligns with how we see the world and how we want our partners to be enabled and supported,” he said.

“This represents significant benefits to all levels of our partner community, and ultimately provides our customers with new ways of consuming our market-defining products and services,” he added.