Veeam Software, an innovative provider of software for managing virtual servers, has named Rick Hoffman worldwide vice president of channels and alliances. Hoffman will apply more than 20 years’ experience in information technology sales management to build a strong channel and alliance network for the company, fueling its drive toward leadership of the virtualization management market.

Hoffman, based in the Dallas, Texas area, comes to Veeam from Quest Software, where he was director of global alliances. In that capacity, he managed Quest’s relationships with Accenture, Avanade, IBM, Dell, Computer Sciences Corp., EDS, HP and other international systems integrators. He came to Quest through its 2004 acquisition of Aelita Software, where he held a similar position.

Having worked with both startup and mature technology companies, Hoffman is well acquainted with best practices to drive customer satisfaction, partner revenue and channel success. He was co-founder and executive vice president of National DataGuard Technologies, acquired by Legent Corporation in 1993. Past employers included Sequent Computer Systems and startups Panorama Software, InCert Software and Peritus Software Services.

"Veeam Software's sales strategy is channel driven, both for SMB and enterprise customers," said Ratmir Timashev, Veeam president and CEO. "We believe that customers will be turning to their consulting partners for advice on deploying and managing virtual server environments. Our goal is to build relationships with virtualization experts at companies that provide system integration and consulting services in the virtualization management market. Rick’s background will help us do that."

"My goal is to help channel partners reduce their cost of services, mitigate client risk and increase service levels for their customers," Hoffman said. "We measure our success first by the customer’s satisfaction, then by the partner’s success, and our growth comes as a result of that approach."

One Veeam product of particular interest to partners is Veeam Reporter, as it quickly discovers, analyzes and documents clients’ virtual infrastructure, providing comprehensive reports in Visio, Excel, Word or PDF.