Monday Morning Impact – October 26

Veritas Unveils Global Partner Program

Veritas Technologies has rolled out “Veritas Partner Force,” a new program designed to augment global consistency and profitability for the information management company’s partner network. The announcement was made at the company’s recent channel conference in Orlando, Fla.

Under the new program, Veritas has increased its deal registration cap from $500K to $1M, while maintaining payout rates, so partners can create and register larger transactions with their strategic customers. Veritas has also enhanced its Growth Accelerator Rebate by introducing a 3-step payout program that increases high growth accelerators and simplifies quarterly payouts. The new program also shortens the path to platinum status by requiring two – rather than three – expert competencies and replacing the customer reference requirement with the opportunity for partners to better showcase customer successes.

Channel Impact
Veritas is clearly trying to add new incentives for the channel in an era of increased competition for partner mindshare. The new program acknowledges two important areas where improvements can be made. This announcement is likely to resonate well, particularly with the company’s most engaged partners.

All Dell Solutions Now Available through CDW in North America, Europe and Asia

Aside from its blockbuster deal that made waves throughout the industry earlier this month, Dell has announced an expansion of its channel partnership with CDW to include all Dell products and solutions in CDW’s catalog in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. CDW will also assist customers with the full range of Dell technology and ProSupport services, and will provide assistance with technical and sales support, from initial configuration and quoting, all the way through financing and delivery.

“The combination of Dell’s end-to-end solutions and CDW’s sales and technical expertise is the perfect ‘one-stop-shop’ for customers,” said Rory Read, Chief Operating Officer and President of Commercial Sales, Dell. “With this expanded partnership, Dell is able to reach more customers in North America while maintaining the high-quality of service that our customers expect.”

Dell has invested heavily in its channel partner business and it now represents more than 40% of the company’s overall revenue. Last year, Dell’s channel business experienced double digit year-over-year revenue growth in 10 of its top 11 countries.

Channel Impact
DMRs are clearly gaining higher profile in a wide variety of sales scenarios, and are frequently the primary go-to technology sources for end user companies with well-established IT acumen. This announcement represents a solid move for both Dell and CDW.

Avnet Introduces FSA One Frameworks in the U.S. and Canada

Avnet has rolled out “FSA One Frameworks,” a new set of pre-configured and packaged integrated infrastructure racks that combine products and services from Cisco, NetApp and Avnet based on popular customer configurations. This offering is designed to provide partners with faster quoting, faster shipping and easier purchase request responses; complete solution registration; simplified pricing via automatic price variance requests (PVRs); and a single point of contact, quote and invoice for the full solution stack.

“FlexPod Services by Avnet was initially introduced to our partner community in May 2011, and FSA One Frameworks is a value-added extension of that original offering,” said Jim Kebert, vice president of Avnet’s NetApp solutions business.

FlexPod is a portfolio of prevalidated, integrated infrastructure solutions that combine Cisco UCS integrated infrastructure and NetApp storage components.

Channel Impact
This announcement is all about speed and agility, which are two important watchwords in the high volume services arena. Developing a platform that can accomplish these objectives in a multi-vendor solution is a distinct advantage.