WANdisco announces its biggest ever cloud deal

Sheffield-based WANdisco said the contract is significant and has the potential for expansion beyond an initial three-year subscription period. The group's share rose 10 per cent on the news.David Richards, CEO and chairman of WANdisco, said: “I am delighted to announce our largest ever cloud deal. “This reflects our continued focus upon predictable recurring revenues. The $3m (£2.4m) contract initially spans three years, but there is significant potential to expand this further to meet their developing data requirements.“This contract illustrates the significant traction we are gaining in healthcare and other key industries. Our pipeline continues to grow, and we remain confident and excited about our future.”Mr Richards said the customer has vast data streams which need to be consistently and continuously available during migration to cloud, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud. “WANdisco Fusion remains the only technology capable of fulfilling this,” he added.“This is an excellent demonstration of how we continue to enable the migration of critical live data at scale for Microsoft Azure, and other cloud leaders.”Analyst Matthew Davis at WH Ireland said: “WANdisco has announced its largest ever cloud deal – an initial $3m three-year deal (with capacity to grow) with a major US health insurer. The licence again leverages WANdisco’s strategic co-sell relationship with Microsoft (which we believe provides significant forward opportunities) with the clients looking to utilise Fusion for on-premise and hybrid cloud use cases. “In terms of phasing, we expect over $2m of the $3m headline value to be recognised in the current financial year, thus helping to underpin 2018 estimates. The health insurer has over 22,000 employees and fifteen million members and thus represents a significant growth opportunity in itself.”Mr Davis said that although it is difficult for WANdisco to control the timing of deals, as they are typically part of larger infrastructure/ service deals, he believes the market is increasingly accepting of Fusion. “The importance of WANdisco’s strategic relationship with Microsoft is also becoming clear, both in terms of deal flow, but also Microsoft’s increasing presence in the space,” he added.WANdisco said the health insurer will start utilising Fusion for on-premise and hybrid cloud use cases. It said that this contract leverages WANdisco’s strategic co-sell relationship with Microsoft as the insurer looks to move data to the Azure cloud. WANdisco said Fusion is the only solution that can enable organisations to seamlessly move large volumes of data with consistent and continuous availability whilst meeting regulatory requirements. “WANdisco’s patented technology ensures our customers are able to leverage the impact of their IT investment to support exponential data growth without growing the IT budget,” said Mr Richards.