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Cloud storage service provider Symform has been trying to make a name for itself through its low-cost, efficient distributed storage service. Now, it’s looking to disrupt the cloud storage market and attract more reseller partners and customers by offering 100 gigabytes of storage for free.

Symform officially launched the freemium service today. Customers signing up for the free service will receive 100 gigabytes of storage and self-service technical support. Reseller partners will receive the same storage allocation and unlimited access to live technical support.

“When people use Symform, partners want to sell it and customers want to buy it,” says Jeff O’Mara, who heads up marketing for the company.

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Founded by former Microsoft executives Bassam Tabbara and Praerit Garg, Symform differs from other cloud storage provides in that it doesn’t have a data center of its own. It uses the unutilized storage and computing capacity of its subscribers to store data across the distributed ecosystem. Its software and control system secures and manages the data.

Symform “shreds” the data into tiny fragments and encrypts them with 256-byte AES keys, making data nearly impossible to crack. Even if the data fragments are compromised, each individual fragment doesn’t contain enough information to reconstitute the data.

The system, Symform argues, provides greater scalability at a substantially lower cost than competitive platforms. And that’s what Symform is banking on.

Cloud storage providers are having a hard time meeting the capacity needs of their business model, containing costs and ramping revenue. Earlier this year, Iron Mountain left the cloud storage market, citing the escalating costs and customers resistance to its pricing structure.

By offering the freemium service, Symform is looking to not only show the features of its system to partners and customers, but also expose what it believes is inflated and unnecessary prices charged by competitors. In its announcement, Symform cites prices from its leading competitors that range from $200 to $1,200 in annual fees for the same storage space they’re giving away.

“There is a tremendous cost that doesn’t need to exist,” Tabbara says.

What’s unclear is exactly how Symform engages with partners. Its model for partner relationships and compensation aren’t well defined. However, the company assures all leads generated through the freemium offering will go back to partners for sales conversion.

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Lawrence M. Walsh is CEO and president of The 2112 Group, a technology business advisory service that specializes in optimizing indirect channels and partner relationships. He’s also the executive director of the Channel Vanguard Council. He is the former publisher of Channel Insider and editor of VARBusiness Magazine. You can reach him at lmwalsh@the2112group.com.

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Larry Walsh:@lmwalsh2112| Channelnomics: @channelnomics

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