New Developments with Boston-area Vendors

This week we held the first of a series of editorial briefings in our Waltham, Mass. office. Vendors came in to speak to editors Rob Wright, Sonia Lelii and David Strom about the latest technologies they have to offer.

EMC:
The Hopkinton, Mass.-based company continues to work on changing from a direct-sales force model to one that is more partner-focused. Just last month, EMC started its partner certification program and executives say that about one-third of its business now goes through the channel.

CEO Joseph Tucci has outlined the five strategic areas that EMC is focusing on, and they include network storage, open software, services, the channel and business continuity.

Greg Ambulos, EMC's vice president for global channels, said the company is not interested in signing up hundreds of new partners. Rather, they are focusing more on partner quality--meaning those partners who are willing to invest and learn EMC's sales method and technology. Ultimately, EMC wants to build a better relationship with channel partners compared to its past record. Executives say partners are beginning to trust EMC.

"You can't just create a place for partners to play and then pull away from them," Ambulos said. "They will never trust you again."

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TidalWire:
This past May, TidalWire purchased the host bus adapter (HBA) business from McData for an undisclosed sum. As part of this agreement, McData will outsource its HBA business to TidalWire, which was appointed McData's provider of HBA services worldwide. Previously, McData managed its customer HBA needs internally.

And one of the most unique things that WestBorough, Mass.-based TidalWire offers, especially considering it's a distributor and not a news organization, is a storage news Web portal. Each day, a TidalWire research employee combs the Internet in search of stories, news and research papers concerning storage. The Storage Connection Forum offers discussions on an iSCSI plugfest, or the CIM and Bluefin standards, or information on Gadzoox's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

BMC:
The company plans to introduce a new strategy next week called Enterprise Performance Assurance, which will entail the expansion of current product lines and the addition of new technology as well. The first installment will be Patrol Perceive, a Web-based data access solution that can be quickly installed and accessed via Internet browsers.

David Wagner, director of product marketing and enterprise performance assurance at BMC, said Patrol Perceive will act as an entry-level version of the company's performance and prediction software, Patrol Predict and Patrol Perform. "Enterprise systems management has become rocket science stuff. Patrol Perceive brings to bar down," Wagner said.

Enterasys Networks:
Enterasys split from parent company Cabletron two years ago. The company decided to abandon Cabletron's direct sales approach and build a channel program. In addition, Enterasys also made the decision to focus on the enterprise network market. "The enterprise level is really the only healthy market left for networking," said Robert Ray, vice president of worldwide channel marketing for Enterasys.

Seeking to establish a stronger identity in the channel, the company last month rolled out enhancements to its Partner Program, including new value-added discounts for solution providers. Ray said 80 percent of Enterasys' sales are indirect but only a small portion of that comes from VARs. The company is hoping to improve its channel business, Ray said. In addition, Enterasys will continue delivering standards-based networking products for enterprises. "We're focused on standards, not proprietary technology," Ray said. "Very few vendors in our space have a single vendor network."

Bluesocket:
After months of waiting on enterprise adoption for wireless, Bluesocket essentially gave up and targeted new markets. The Burlington, Mass.-based company, which specializes in building wireless LAN solutions, shifted its attention to government and education recently and has found a home. "We thought the enterprise would be big for wireless this year, but it's not," said Patrick Rafter, director of communications at Bluesocket. "Education is our biggest market now, and federal, state and local governments are probably the second biggest." Rafter said colleges are now competiting with each other to offer wireless access across their campuses, and find that being wireless helps to recruit potential students.

Bluesocket launched its Homeland Wireless Security Initiative this month to position wireless LAN security solutions for government customers and build on its momentum in that market. With 60 VARs on its side, Bluesocket has also captured higher education clients such as Harvard University as the demand for wireless networks on campus continues to increase.

RSA Security:
RSA Security recently introduced a new authentication solution, RSA Mobile, that uses one-time access codes to users for secure entry into Web-based applications. Users can access the solution via mobile technology or short messaging services. RSA Mobile is similar to the company's popular authentication solution SecureID.

The company is currently concentrating on building its partner program, SecurWorld, which now features online training tools for its 500 resellers. Amy Speare, senior product manager at RSA, said the company has made significant strides training and educating partners on authentication technology, and the maturing security channel had paid dividends for RSA. "We've seen a lot of growth in tactical buying," Speare said. "People want authentication solutions as part of their overall security system today."

Cognos:
Business intelligence software maker Cognos made two recent announcements that look to have an impact on the industry. The company announced a major alliance with Manugistics, which will integrate Cognos' Series 7 BI software with Manugistics' supply chain and asset management solutions. Ted Jandl, vice president of North American partner channels at Cognos, said the Manugistics alliance is a landmark partnership for his company.

Cognos also introduced its Web services integration platform, designed to extend Series 7 to other applications and environments. "It's going to help us with application server and portal integration and give us a flexible programming model" said David Marmer, senior director of marketing strategy and sales support at Cognos.

Ipswitch:
The company's anti-virus messaging solution IMail Anti-Virus has seen remarkable growth recently, and its IMail Server, which features a built-in list server and anti-spam technology, has 50 million seats. Ipswitch officials said the recent increase in infected e-mail and spam has created a new demand for messaging security solutions.

The company teamed up with Cisco Systems earlier this year, and coupling IMail solutions to Cisco technology has generated a lot of revenue recently, according to Erica Giogas, channel recruiting manager at Ipswitch. In addition, Giogas said the company has seen increasing growth with smaller and mid-sized businesses. "We've developed a strong presence in the SMB market," she said.

PTC
About 18 months after changing its sales approach, PTC says it's still hard at work on attracting partners and building a solid channel program. "PTC has historically been a direct sales organization," said Paul Ohrenberger, vice president of PTC's channel development for the Americas. "About 18 months ago we renewed our efforts to build a channel."

Currently, the software company has 170 partners worldwide. PTC is continuing to position its product development software, such as Windchill and Pro/Engineer, in the channel and recruit VARs. The company has even rolled out a free entry-level version of Pro/Engineer to attract partners and customers in the small and medium business market. "We're moving our direct sales force upstream to the top enterprises," Ohrenberger said, "and we're giving everything in the mid market and below to our partners."

Elron:
The Burlington, Mass.-based company sells a line of Web content filtering and policy management tools and the channel is gaining an increasing share of Elron's business, according to Rosette Cataldo, director of Channel Sales. At present the channel accounts for 20% of sales. As a result, the company has moved to an indirect model and has invested in systems and processes to expand its partner support.

APC:
Power protection is moving into more distributed places around the enterprise, according to Jonathan Donovan, director of worldwide marketing for the company. And this trend is especially apparent, he said, as corporations adopt IP telephony and need to ensure more reliable operations of their networking infrastructure such as switches, routers, and wiring concentrators. Donovan spoke about new initiatives that APC has towards providing power protection for the wiring closet, including building rack enclosures that will also protect the networking components from unauthorized employees tampering with this gear.