Domain name registrar, SmartyHost, has hired Doug Elliot as its first national business development manager. He will work on developing its hardware-as-a-service model, Vigabyte, and increasing channel participation.

Vigabyte provides a virtual infrastructure data suite which customers can use to provision and deliver virtual and dedicated servers in real-time. Elliot said its new channel strategy would include developing a formal partner program. This was scheduled to launch this month.

"This stage I've got a lot of ideas in the pipeline. It's a very simple partner model and everyone knows what margins you are going to make," he said. "I will be working with our current partners, like Optus, as well as bringing on new resellers by getting out into the market, telling them who we are, what we are doing and what we can offer."

Elliot said all types of resellers could sell its hardware-as-a-service.

"Partnering with Vigabyte is low risk - we've designed an enterprise datacentre from the ground up, so there is a low ongoing investment cost," he said. "It also delivers an ongoing revenue stream. You don't get this when you just sell boxes.

"Partners don't have to pay for the infrastructure or maintenance. Selling services such as Vigabyte gives resellers better product and margins with a 99.9 per cent uptime."

Elliot previously spent 10 years at NEC as its southern region manager and national channel manager.