Partner Program Updates: Aruba, Avant, IBM, RingCentral, More
IBM made changes to its partner incentives. Two TSDs made big announcements.
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Aruba Networks added an incentive for partners to sell its expanding data center portfolio.
Partners can earn a 10% backend rebate on data center sales if they certify two sales people and two technical people. The comptency also puts them squarely in the crosshairs of Aruba field salespeople, who want to identify channel partners they can co-sell with for data center.
Channel Futures interviewed two key Aruba channel leaders and an MSP.
IBM rolled out a new set of incentives for channel partners.
Partners can earn a base sales incentive for any opportunity, a profeciency accelerator for possesing unique skills to deliver a specific product, and a territory acccelerator for getting involved in a deal outside IBM’s house accounts.
The incentive program came into existence out of the recently unveiled IBM Partner Plus Program.
Jeffrey Schwartz wrote about the incentive program.
RingCentral is giving partners more contract options.
The UC and collaboration provider unveiled its new Reach program at the Channel Partners Conference and Expo. A channel executive from the company said RingCentral is emphasizing transparency and flexibility through the new program.
Watch Wendy Harmon’s video Q&A with Craig Galbraith.
Aryaka Networks is offering reseller partner margins of between 25% and 35%, as well as extra help on the services side.
Aryaka unveiled its Ignyte reseller program as a subset of its Accelerate channel program. The program includes an offer of Aryaka providing six months of free services for a 36-month term contract.
Read about Ignyte.
Guaging by the reactions MSP attendees made at the Kaseya Connect Global conference, the RMM provider might be winning back partner trust.
MSPs told Channel Futures that they see Kaseya, which bought Datto last year, making efforts to drop prices for partners.
“One of our commitments that we’ve made over the years is, every time we buy a product, we buy a company, we lower the price. Our goal is to be 33% or more less expensive than any of our single-product competitors out there,” Kaseya CEO Fred Voccola said.
New Channel Futures MSP reporter Jeff O’Heir described a scene of standing ovation at the Las Vegas conference.
Edward Gately never stops writing about cybersecurity.
In this case, Gately covered Akamai‘s plans to bring security and delivery partners more discounts. Specifically, updated pricing gives partners more upfront incentive to register deals.
Executives added that they are waiting on partner feedback for Akamai’s Linode cloud computing division.
Read the story about Akamai.
Avant released the 2.0 version of its flagship Pathfinder IT decision-making and sales enablement tool.
The tech services distributor showed partners the latest addition of Pathfinder last week. The updated platform features a more intuitive interface as well as the ability to toggle between customer-facing and non-customer-facing sides of the platform. Technology advisors using platform can present Pathfinder to a customer under their own logo and domain, using the tool to walk the customer through different technology solutions.
“We meet with our top trusted advisors regularly, and their main ask is around those customer-facing tools to make them more credible to their customers and help them get through the more complex sales engagements,” Avant vice president of product Jake Schuman told Channel Futures in an interview.
Check out Avant’s full list of updates in their recent press release.
Concentric AI launched its first partner program.
The company took feedback from its partner Set Solutions to build a program with registration protection and support resources.
The vendor provides autonomous data security posture management (DSPM). Its executives said they aspire to be 100% channel-first.
Learn more about Concentric AI.
DigiCert partners can apply for the SSL digital certificate authority provider’s new partner program upon contract renewal.
The updated program features training, support and tools, as well as new professional services opportunities.
The vendor’s channel leader said he is aiming bring the percentage of channel business from about 20% to more than 50%.
That channel leader recently joined from Secureworks.
Check out yet another Edward Gately ditty.
Solution providers, system integrators and technology integration partners can team up with Sonatype in its new program.
The Partner Acceleration Program contains graduated levels of benefits and resources. Dedicated partner managers and technical support people are working within the program.
Sonatype provides supply chain management.
Learn more about Sonatype.
Deepwatch introduced a partner tiering framework.
Partners begin at silver and can advance to gold and platinum with the right combination of minimum revenue and specializations.
The managed detection and response (MDR) provider describes itself as a channel-only company.
Read Edward Gately’s reporting on the matter.
Contrast Security started a managed security services provider (MSSP) program.
The new program, operating under the Security Innovation Alliance, lets MSSPs use its Secure Code Platform. Executives said the program directly forms out of partner feedback.
Edward Gately has the scoop.
No shortage of channel updates came out of the vaunted RSA Conference in April.
Take for instance Delinea, which is accomodating additional partner types through its existing program. Delinea, which has brought together Thycotic and Centrify, is evolving the program to ensure MSPs, MSSPs, marketplaces and “ecosystem players” join VARs and resellers at the table.
In addition, penetration test-as-a-service provider Bugcrowd is launching a new partner program. Executives said they’re building the organization with feedback from both partners as well as from channel-savvy people who have recently joined the company.
Edward Gately summed up these various partner program updates in his RSA wrap.
Optiv channel leaders said they have built a more outcome-driven partner program.
The program values specialized commitments and prioritization from partners. Optiv took feedback from key partners in the fourth quarter to build the organization.
Edward Gately covered the news as part of his RSA reporting.
CrashPlan sought to speed up and simplify partner onboarding and time to revenue in a program update.
Any reseller partner can engage directly or indirectly with the vendor, which provides cloud backup solutions. The North America-focused program includes reseller enablement resources and renewal incumbency protection.
“We’ve designed the partner program with a flexible, tiered structure that lets our partners get started quickly and easily grow their revenue with CrashPlan,” the company’s CEO said.
Claudia Adrien covered the update from the vendor.
A monthly subscription to a TSD? The folks at Clarus Communications/TDM believe many people will jump at the opportunity.
The technology services distributor started its 100% Club to the agent community late last month. The premise is that partners will subscribe to Clarus for $1,000 a month and in turn receive the entirety of the commissions and SPIFFs that vendor partners pass through Clarus. And for partners who are driving a high enough monthly recurring revenue with Clarus each month, that could mean a lot more money.
“If you’re a partner billing $50,000, it’s a net gain on day one,” a Clarus managing partner said.
The concept has existed in some form for the last two decades. Almost 20 years ago, KeaneTel rolled out its Rainmaker agent-in-a-box program, which included subscription options of $99, $199 and $600. And more recently, TDM (which leads the family of companies containing Clarus) has been running a 100% option for some of its internal members for about a decade.
Read Channel Futures’ article about Clarus’ 100% Club.
Forcepoint executives said its new MSSP program lets partners offer a range of prices and solution packaging.
The vendor has targeted service providers, distributors and resellers with its Forcepoint One Program. They will get access to Forcepoint’s security service edge (SSE) cloud-based platform.
The vendor is also providing enablement and training support, and channel managers.
Read more about Forcepoint’s program.
Illumio launched a channel program for incident response.
The program “formalizes” the existing motion of specific partners deploying the Illumio platform into live data breaches. The vendor will provide a team of data breach experts as support for partners.
Get details on the program and Illumio’s platform.
Gluware resellers are getting more opportunities from the vendor.
The program includes sales incentives and co-selling opportunities. The company also stated that it is providing go-to-market support and joint marketing resources.
Gluware provides network automation.
Read more about Gluware’s program.
Schneider Electric targeted e-commerce partners with a new program.
The program contains resources design to keep partners educated on the e-commerce world and compensated for their engagement. Incentives include marketing funds, rebates and sell-out initiatives.
Christine Horton wrote about Schneider Electric.
Schneider Electric targeted e-commerce partners with a new program.
The program contains resources design to keep partners educated on the e-commerce world and compensated for their engagement. Incentives include marketing funds, rebates and sell-out initiatives.
Christine Horton wrote about Schneider Electric.
Technology vendors such as Aruba, Aryaka and a host of cybersecurity providers announced channel partner program updates last month.
IT, collaboration and telecommunications suppliers stayed busy in the month of April with partner program changes of all sorts. Some, like IBM, offered a new structure for sales incentives. Others, like Deepwatch, rolled out new program tiers. Other vendors targeted specific partner types with resources — MSSPs, for example.
A staggering number of cybersecurity providers are making big investments in the channel. For example, Channel Futures wrote last month about the personnel investments Coro Cybersecurity made in the tech services distributor channel. Other security providers made announcements geared toward resellers, and eyed MSSPs.
Not all of the companies here fall into the supplier category. For example, Avant announced a big update to its Pathfinder tool, and Clarus Communications made a subscription plan generally available.
Admittedly, not all vendor stories made this month’s list of channel-impacting changes. But Channel Futures endeavored to summarize some of the most newsworthy in a slideshow.
Scroll through the carousel of 20 stories above featuring partner program updates.
There’s also the roundup of March channel changes.
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