Symantec Partner Engage 2010

Cochran talks changeRandy Cochran, vice-president of channel sales, Americas at Symantec, gave a keynote speech at the event where he explained the company’s move towards a specialist model.

“We’re looking for partners to go deep with specializations and, in turn, we’ll provide a strong return on investment to them,” Cochran said. “There’s no longer any revenue requirement to maintain your status in the program.”

Right now, Symantec’s Partner Program is comprised of four levels: Registered, Silver, Gold and Platinum. In order to qualify for a specific level, partners must meet a revenue requirement and hold certain accreditations. While these levels will stay the same, partners will have 10 months to achieve a certain number of specializations which will determine which level they’re in.

Specialized partners will be rewarded for their efforts through various benefits such as online training, increased discounts, licenses for internal use and teaming agreements.

Canadian Partner of the YearToronto-based HighVail Systems, a platinum level partner With Symantec, was named Canadian Partner of the Year. Company president Bradley Brodkin was on hand at the event to accept the award.

“Specializations are key to myself and my team and we’ll see how we can map our specializations with Symantec and our relationships with other vendors to take advantage of economies of scale,” Brodkin said. “Specializations will help us gain that stickiness and extra value with customers and the margins will come after that.”

A message from the president and CEOEnrique Salem, Symantec’s president and CEO, was also in attendance at Partner Engage. He addressed the audience in a keynote speech where he outlined the company’s vision and strategy moving forward.

“At Symantec, we want to take a user-centric view of the world,” he said. “We don’t want to focus on point products. Instead, we need a new approach. We think everything revolves around people and information, with IT falling in the middle. As we go forward, let’s look at creating attributes such as where a person works, what role they have in the business and how long they’ve been with the company to create and enforce policies.”

Salem also outlined five enablers that he said will help guide Symantec’s business forward: device security, information protection, context and relevance and cloud enablement.

Canadian perspectiveSymantec Canada’s general manager, Michael Murphy and director of enterprise channels, Fred Patterson, were part of a media roundtable where they discussed how the business was doing in Canada.

In an effort to encourage more partner-to-partner collaboration, Patterson said for a limited time, Symantec will have a financial incentive offering available to the channel. If a partner finds a customer opportunity and they’re not specialized in that particular area, they can register the deal and can find another partner who’s specialized to deliver those services. This way both partners can make margins and it allows for a stickier customer and partner relationship, Patterson explained. This financial offering is now available for partners and will be piloted over the next several months.

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Symantec promises partner payoff with enhanced partner program
Symantec’s CEO has a user-centric security vision