Partners Crucial To $1 Billion Sales Push
VB: There is heightened interest among customers in security. What can you do to take advantage of that in this period where budgets are expanding wildly?
Thompson: What we are trying to do is demonstrate to customers that security starts with a plan. You cannot just go out and acquire a set of products without having a plan for how you want to secure your environment. So, the investment we are making in our consulting capability, the investments in our managed-security services functionality, and the product investments are all aimed at helping customers plan for how they secure their environments and deliver products and services that help them with the implementation and follow-through.
VB: Can you be more specific?
Thompson: Well, we've launched a number of products so far this calendar year. The most significant is Symantec Gateway Security appliance, which we've targeted at midsize businesses and the remote branches of an enterprise where they don't have the skills [to implement deep technologies and manage them day-to-day.
VB: How do you attract and keep your partners?
Thompson: I think the first thing is that Symantec is very much a known company to them in this space. We have been in business for a long period of time. We have always, always been a channel-friendly company. Hence, they know we're not going to do a deal with them today and then take the deal from them tomorrow. So the predictability and consistency of our business model related to the channel is a very, very important thing for us and, hopefully, them as well. Second, because of the breadth and depth of our portfolio, they get to build a business around our business. They have multiple products that they can choose from. And the approach of multiple products gives them leverage as they pick and choose. As they sell more of one or more products, it affords them a greater value bundle, hence they can make more money by selling multiple products. So, I think the combination of consistently predictable focus on the channel and a broad product portfolio around which they can build a business makes Symantec an ideal choice for many of the partners we have.
VB: What is your revenue through your channel?
Thompson: Better than 90 percent of what we generate today flows through a channel.
VB: You've expanded your portfolio, haven't you?
Thompson: That's right; we've expanded our business mix, too. So it's not just antivirus, but firewall, intrusion-detection, vulnerability management, secure remote control, PC-cloning,a broad, broad range of technologies that should sustain us, hopefully, for many years to come.