Monday Morning Impact – April 23

Rackspace Launches New Partner Program, Eyeing Digital Transformation

Rackspace has rolled out a new partner program intended to provide partners with better visibility and access into the San Antonio-based company’s portfolio of managed IT services, including private and public clouds, application services, managed hosting, colocation and managed security.

“Rackspace recognizes that as technology continues to evolve, end users are continuing to uncover new business challenges and as a result must modernize their IT,” said Lisa McLin, Channel Chief at Rackspace. “The new program will better enable partners to service their customers through our unrivaled portfolio and unbiased expertise to help organizations as they transform their IT.”

Features of the new, updated program include a formalized MDF program, dedicated partner account managers, special events, executive sponsorship, priority access to support, an enhanced partner portal, and joint marketing content.

The program is now live in North America, and available for sign-up.

Channel Impact^®
The new program is intended to give partners the ability to leverage both self-service and highly dedicated, customized program models based on their own business strategies for helping end customers in their digital transformations.

GuardiCore Expands Partner Program To MSSPs

GuardiCore, which focuses on cloud and data center security, has updated its global partner program to better align with the service-focused shift in the channel. The new program is intended to empower partners focused on delivering professional and managed security services to deliver specialized and differentiated solutions.

“Today’s expanding attack surface and increasing complexities involved in protecting dynamic hybrid environments demand that partners be able to offer services and solutions that help ensure protection of their clients’ most critical assets,” said Todd Bice, senior director of channels at GuardiCore. “We specifically enable a wide-range of partner-led professional services engagements, embed into partner operational services to deliver managed security services or provide a traditional reseller model to address various use cases.”

The vendor offers a floating licensing model for partners that can be leveraged in pre-sales discovery and to deliver a wide range of professional services. Example projects may include security assessments, application dependency mapping, cloud migration, and incident response.

In addition to multiple partner licensing models, deal registration, and customized sales support, the program also provides marketing funds for new partners to help drive awareness and accelerate pipeline opportunities.

Channel Impact^®
The program’s updates are largely driven by rapid shifts in cybersecurity, including the growth and sophistication of attacks, mounting consequences of a breach, increasing integration of business processes and security, professional skills shortage and the ongoing transition to the cloud.

Mimecast Launches Program for Email and Data Security

Mimecast, Ltd., a Lexington, Massachusetts-based security company, is going live with a new partner program designed to bring uniformity to how the vendor works with resellers on a global level.

With a tiered approach to partner benefits, the new program offers deeper discounts for partners that meet specific commitments; enhanced training programs and enablement tracks; access to dedicated account resources, including partner account managers, sales engineers and marketing managers; and a new dashboard to help partners track rewards.

Mimecast has also expanded its channel team with the appointments of Shawn Pearson as vice president of channel sales in North America, Julian Martin as vice president of global channel and operations and Rema Lolas, the new channel director in Australia and New Zealand. Pearson joins Mimecast from Hewlett-Packard where he was the vice president of inside sales. Martin has more than 20 years’ experience in information technology and has held many positions at Mimecast over his 10-year tenure. Lolas brings more than 14 years of experience in global channels, enterprise software sales and marketing, working for both international technology vendors and ANZ resellers.

“As we have continued to engage with our rapidly expanding ecosystem of resellers globally, we developed a stronger global strategy,“ said Julian Martin. “We took direct feedback from our resellers to ensure the Mimecast Global Partner Program has all the components they need to be successful.”

In addition, Mimecast has made its technology interoperable with several leading complementary API vendors.

Channel Impact^®
The new program is intended to provide increased rewards and opportunities for resellers seeking to build long-term business relationships and strengthen their reputations as trusted business advisors.