CA Upgrades Its Support Programs For Partners

Under the new Choice Technical Support Program, Islandia-based CA provides a free Enterprise technical support package, which includes around-the-clock telephone support, to its top-level Enterprise partners.

"It's just good to see they're very responsive to their top partners and are trying to remain competitive," said Dan O'Brien, vice president of enterprise solutions at Sarcom, a CA Enterprise partner based in Lewis Center, Ohio.

O'Brien said he attended a meeting of CA's storage partners earlier this year when solution providers broached to CA executives the topic of free, unlimited support.

CA planned to provide Enterprise partners with free support for the first 90 days of each implementation, but partners asked for more, O'Brien said.

"They said they would take it under advisement," he said.

Few of CA's competitors formally offer free, 24x7 support to solution providers, although top-level partners can negotiate for it, O'Brien said.

Other Channel Partner Program members also receive increased benefits under the new program, said Ira Simon, vice president of channel marketing at CA.

Premier partners, CA's midlevel partner designation, now receive a free Value Support package, which includes unlimited telephone support from Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST.

Entry-level Affiliate partners receive five free support calls per year.

All CA partners also have access to a dedicated, toll-free support phone number, Simon said.

In addition, partners can resell the technical support packages to customers for additional revenue opportunities, he said.