Brocade Eyes Cisco With New Channel Program

Brocade is ready to pull the curtain off of its new channel partner program, the first major revamp since the data center and storage vendor acquired Foundry Networks last July, a program the company said will better position it as a strong alternative to Cisco Systems.

The goal of the new program, according to Barbara Spicek, Brocade's vice president of worldwide channels, was to launch a platform that integrates both the Brocade and Foundry product lines, but doesn't leave its core cadre of partners high and dry and wondering what to do with the new IP networking offerings and vice versa.

"Brocade as a company had quite a strong channel strategy basically across the years," Spicek said. "We've always been a 100 percent indirect company. We had a strong channel program but very much a loyalty-based channel program. We would more or less go to the big system players that sell HP, IBM or EMC."

Now Brocade has added Foundry, which has a legacy of single-tier and reseller-based programs that Spicek classified as opportunistic and project-based.

"The challenge now with them coming together is we want to create and launch a powerful integrated partner program that incorporates both the SAN and the LAN products and helps us create a strong networking channel to do more with the IP product lines," Spicek said.

Brocade's new global Alliance Partner Network channel program, which officially launched Wednesday, is designed to attract both storage and IP networking VARs with a selective and profitable program focused on ease of use, value and component-rich elements.

The new two-tiered program will comprise four distinct partner levels: distributor, elite, premier and select, each of which has specific requirements and benefits Spicek said will reward partners for knowledge, solution support and expertise. Partners will have access to deal registration to ensure project and investment protection, and Spicek said that Brocade has expanded its dedicated sales, marketing and technical support model.

"I really want to make sure it's qualitative, it's profitable and it's selective in terms of partnership," Spicek said. "We've been very clear from the beginning that we're not going to launch something that's over-distributed."

According to Spicek, wrapping in the networking products brought in through the Foundry acquisition and launching a new channel program consisting of the two product portfolios set Brocade up to be a strong alternative to Cisco, the leader in the data center networking space.

"We are now the only alternative to Cisco in terms of a real end-to-end player," Spicek said. "In this total market across technologies like storage area networking, wide area networking, metropolitan area networking, local area networking, there are only two that actually do it all. Between the two of us we're the only ones that talk about this complete unified data center story."

And the new Alliance Partner Network, Spicek said, will help VARs better compete if they're seeking an alternative.

"There also has to be a partner desire to look for an alternative. Partners are looking for vendors that really give them quality of partnership and margins back," she said. "Everything we're designing in the partner program is really geared this way. We're keeping it selective. We're going to be putting a lot of quality elements into the program, like the ability to deliver support and professional services that deliver revenue for them. We're going to be designing around growth initiatives so they get end-of-quarter rebates. We're trying to design the program to ensure we reinject profitability."

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