Monday Morning Impact – May 1

Westcon-Comstor and Viptela Strike SDN Alliance

Viptela, a San Jose-based software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) company, has joined Westcon-Comstor’s invitation-only Accelerate program. The partnership provides Viptela with the regional support and delivery resources to rapidly scale its SD-WAN solutions into new markets, leveraging a repeatable, global process developed by the Tarrytown, NY-based distributor.

Viptela’s SD-WAN solution is designed to help enterprises increase bandwidth and improve cloud performance by multiple orders of magnitude while also reducing WAN costs, as compared to traditional network infrastructure. The vendor also promises enhanced control and visibility over the network, faster provisioning of services, and improved security and compliance.

“Legacy WAN infrastructure isn’t keeping up with the demands on today’s network,” said Anthony D’Angelo, vice president, worldwide channel sales at Viptela. “Exploding market demand for Viptela’s technology makes this the perfect time to enlist Westcon-Comstor to help us expand our geographic reach and pool of worldwide solution providers.”

Westcon-Comstor’s Accelerate program specifically targets vendors with promising technologies that may not have previously used or considered distribution as a route to market. The distributor then helps those vendors to ramp their channel business in multiple countries or regions.

“Accelerate has been instrumental in helping us identify leading-edge technologies and bring them to market as demand for those technologies accelerates, allowing both our vendor partners and solution providers to maximize revenue and profit potential,” said Patty Gray, vice president of global partner management at Westcon-Comstor. “Viptela’s SD-WAN technology allows enterprises to build carrier-agnostic, policy-controlled WANs cost-effectively.”

Channel Impact^®
This alliance should help to propel a vendor in a strong technology space toward a stronger market position and a worldwide presence.

Neustar Rolls Out Cloud Security Partner Program

Neustar, Inc., a Sterling, VA-based provider of real-time information services, officially unveiled its cloud security partner program for business partners and cloud service providers who will sell and deploy the company’s cloud services, including DNS and DDoS mitigation.

“Over the past few years, delivering security and infrastructure services via the cloud has become a pillar in the business plans of high-growth channel partners – the time for channels is now,” said Lee Finck, vice president of worldwide channels at Neustar. “Our new channel program takes advantage of this timing by providing a mature, well-proven portfolio of DNS, DDoS mitigation and IP intelligence services to complement our partner’s existing solution stack.”

Key program benefits include automated opportunity registration, market development funds, marketing assets, go-to-market plans, training and support, and dedicated partner account executives. Multiple deployment methods are supported, including hybrid and on premise solutions.

Channel Impact^®
Neustar says it is particularly targeting a select group of security specialists in the channel as a means of getting the most advancement from its partner network.

Xerox Names Pete Peterson as Global Channel Strategy Leader

Xerox has named Pete Peterson as the company’s new senior vice president of global channel strategy. As the team lead, Peterson will be responsible for revenue and profit growth, as well as leading and executing targeted investments across direct and indirect channels worldwide.

Peterson joins Xerox from Tessco Technologies where he led the sales organization. Prior to that, Peterson was the vice president of global channels at Brocade, after spending nearly 20 years at Tech Data, where he held various sales and marketing roles, ultimately serving as senior vice president of sales for the United States.

“Now that we support the largest solutions-enabled portfolio in the industry, we’re able to bring new opportunities to the partner channel that serves small and medium businesses (SMBs),” said Kevin Warren, chief commercial officer at Xerox. “Pete is part of our investment in that channel network – bringing to Xerox the extensive experience required to ratchet up recruitment and activation of partners that are the right fit and growth potential to increase our market share with SMBs.”

Channel Impact^®
According to a company statement, Xerox is focused on enhancing and expanding its channel reach, particularly in the $20 billion multi-brand reseller space.