Monday Morning Impact – August 6

BlueJeans Expands Partner Program with New Investments and Incentives

Blue Jeans Network, Inc., the creator of a cloud service to connect desktops, mobile devices, and room systems in one video meeting, has updated its channel program. The revised program from the Mountain View, California-based company features a tiered structure designed to strengthen benefits and incentives for partners who invest in the skills and certifications required to deliver successful customer outcomes.

Offerings include virtual meeting rooms as well as online venues for smaller meetings and event-level platforms to support larger gatherings.

Program components include deal registration, market development funds and related marketing resources, leads distribution, target-based rebates, a new training and certification program, presales support, a revamped partner portal, and representation from a partner advisory council.

“We worked closely with our partners and listened to their feedback to build a program that extends beyond referrals to give partners more control as well as the ability to generate additional revenue and margin,” said Chief Revenue Officer George Mogannam. “The market has responded enthusiastically to BlueJeans’ integration of Dolby Voice technology and our integrations with Workplace by Facebook and Microsoft Teams. It is clear that enterprises increasingly expect BlueJeans to work across all our partners to solve the challenges of the modern workplace.”

Channel Impact^®
As organizations strive to increase agility in the workplace by improving the way teams communicate internally externally, they become increasingly reliant on skilled partners who can bring those benefits to bear. The updated program is intended to advance collaboration in the digital workplace by providing partners with the incentives and skills to meet customer needs, as well as to remain actively engaged with the vendor.

Tech Data and Advantech to Deliver Vertical IoT Solutions

Tech Data has signed a distribution agreement with Advantech, a Taiwan-based company specializing in embedded and automation products and solutions for IoT. The deal equips resellers in the U.S. and Canada with solutions preconfigured for Microsoft Azure and related Microsoft services such as Power BI that address a variety of applications across multiple industries.

“Advantech’s portfolio provides a broad variety of IoT products and solutions across today’s strongest verticals including industrial and retail,” said Michelle Curtis, director, IoT Solutions, North America, at Tech Data.

Preconfigured solutions include Advantech Edge Intelligence Servers, which offer a simple industrial solution for channel partners to build up edge-to-cloud applications with integrated hardware, plus software that is preconfigured for Azure.

“The full Advantech portfolio, with horizontally applicable IoT solutions, will contribute toward Tech Data’s advocacy of digital transformation and third platform initiatives—furthering growth in new and emerging markets,” said Jay Liston, channel sales director at Advantech.

Channel Impact^®
Engagement with a large distributor such as Tech Data is likely to help partners drive Azure consumption and make significant inroads in the IoT space.

HYCU Announces Simplified Partner Program

HYCU, Inc., a Boston-based enterprise software company specializing in data backup, recovery, and monitoring for hyper-converged infrastructures (HCI), has rolled out a new partner program specifically designed to reward channel partners for driving sales of their HYCU Data Protection for Nutanix product.

Enhancements include a streamlined deal registration program, co-branded marketing tools, and campaign support, plus an updated partner portal. The program simplifies how partners participate, achieve designation levels and maintain or grow their program status.

The overall objective is to incentivize partners who actively conduct marketing, pursue new engagements, and drive deeper engagement with existing customers. To better support the new program, HYCU will proactively work with partners to focus on HYCU’s new and established partner and industry sector sales accounts and the newly expanded public sector customers.

“Based on feedback from our channel partner community, we’ve created a simple and financially rewarding channel partner program that aligns with our partners’ needs and will enable them to be more profitable selling our portfolio,” said Junelle Swan, VP Channels at HYCU.

HYCU’s flagship product is a purpose-built backup and recovery solution for Nutanix. The company claims more than one million users across more than 25,000 customers, including at least 10 ISVs.

Channel Impact^®
Channel partners focused on small to large enterprises can leverage this program to build a stronger position in the rapidly growing hyper-converged infrastructure space.