Monday Morning Impact – November 3

By Ken Presti, Senior Consultant, Channel Impact

McAfee Revamps Channel Program

McAfee, part of Intel Security, rolled out major adjustments to its channel program during opening day of the company’s fourth annual Partner Summit. The changes focus on a renewed emphasis upon helping partners to build successful security practices, according to Gavin Struthers, senior vice president of worldwide channel operations.

“Together with our partners we have a massive opportunity to lead the security market transformation,” Struthers told the gathering of nearly 700 channel partners. “In order to do so, we must ‘think big’ about how we partner together to protect our mutual customers as they embrace a new computing era and deal with today’s more sophisticated threat landscape.”

The channel program, now renamed the Intel Security Partner Program, is intended to be more flexible so that partners can more easily adopt their business models to suit changes in the industry as well as their respective customer bases.

The previous five product competencies are now being consolidated into three solution competencies; Endpoint Security, Network Security and Security Management.

McAfee is also removing the need for partners to complete Baseline Certifications and is expanding Continuing Education to give all partners the flexibility to earn credits for training that is most relevant to their business. This change results in an approximate 30% reduction in overall training requirements for McAfee Elite partners.

The new Managed Services Specialization, targeted for January 1, 2015, integrates the current Managed Service Provider Program into a specialization. Meanwhile, the Authorized Support Specialization, available Q2 2015, integrates the current MASP (McAfee Authorized Support Provider) Program into a specialization. Both moves are intended to streamline and simplify processes for partners.

The company is also rolling out post-sales services training and certifications based on eight, four-day, instructor-led courses. Upon passing the associated exam, course participants are recognized as a Certified McAfee Security Specialist (CMSS).

The new, on-demand CloudRunner Platform simplifies the development and delivery of product demonstrations. The platform will feature McAfee Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), McAfee Endpoint, and McAfee Network Security Platform (NSP) environments.

On the analytics side of the equation, the new Partner 360 Dashboard provides detailed analysis of partner performance and profitability, including sales performance, rebate and marketing development funds. The platform will be piloted with a select group of North America partners in Q4 2014 with a broader roll out aimed for the first half of 2015.

Channel Impact:
IT security is arguably the most rapidly evolving spaces in the technology industry today. This is a move to enhance partner capability to specialize in this field, adjust to fluid market dynamics, and generally build more successful and more lucrative businesses. Given the fact that most partners work with multiple vendors, we applaud the attempts to make the program more streamlined and manageable.

ClearOne Unveils Channel Channel Program for VoIP, Telecom Agents and MSP’s

ClearOne, a Utah-based provider of audio and visual communication solutions, rolled out a new program of its own last week. The new ClearOne Connections Partner Program consists of two models. The White Label Channel Program is designed for partners targeting different vertical markets to sell and support services under their own brand. This program is particularly designed for VoIP Service Providers, Interconnects and MSPs.

Meanwhile, ClearOne’s agent program is designed to jump start a traditional telecom agent’s entry into the rapidly growing cloud, desktop and mobile communication markets.

“The ClearOne Agent Program will be a game changer, as the telecom agent channel looks to differentiate their solutions, strengthen customer relationships and grow revenue,” said Kent Terpe, ClearOne indirect channel consultant. ClearOne gives businesses of any size everything they need, positioning our partners to win more deals by offering the most affordable and best-in-class cloud-based video conferencing & collaboration solution.”

Channel Impact:
ClearOne is looking to help partners transition to modernized business models, which is important for both partners and vendors of any size.

Verizon and FireEye forge Sales/Technology Agreement

Milpitas, Calif.-based FireEye, Inc. and Verizon Enterprise Solutions announced an agreement to sell FireEye’s mobile security capabilities as a Verizon managed service.

Marketed as FireEye Mobile Threat Prevention (MTP), the solution provides a variety of alerts and reports to enable security teams to identify, block and provide context around the nature of an attack and potential attack groups to inform a more strategic response and remediation strategy.

“Multi-vector threats that include attacks on mobile devices are on the rise,” said Steve Pataky, vice president of worldwide channels and alliances at FireEye. “So if you combine our technology with their people, processes and technologies, we can jointly provide enterprise customers with a great deal of protection and visibility into these threats. We can drastically shorten the time between detection and remediation, and reduce any exfiltration of data.”

FireEye last month announced a similar agreement with Singtel to serve the Asian market.

Channel Impact:
Look for service providers to be among the primary routes to market for the sale of mobility security solutions. The hunt for partners will not go away anytime soon.