Matt Medeiros, CEO, SonicWall

But you don't decide to tackle a brand new market segment without some strategic planning. Medeiros had been priming the company for years before making the announcement in February. He did it by establishing a loyal enterprise customer base while simultaneously retooling engineering teams and go-to-market strategies.

"It's an entire company-wide campaign that you have to move forward with, to prepare yourself for that type of transition," Medeiros told Everything Channel during an interview.

To say the least, it was an ambitious year. Medeiros also oversaw the completion of the company's new Partner Excellence Center, based in Tempe, Ariz. housing an all-inclusive support center and training facility geared specifically for SonicWall channel partners and engineers. The center officially opened its doors last July.

Since then, the Excellence Center has become an integral piece of Medeiros' aggressive campaign to beef up existing partners' technological expertise in the enterprise while actively recruited new partners already serving those markets. It also provided the answer to numerous support and technical issues raised by partners after Medeiros announced that the company would eliminate all contracted and outsourced tech support for partners.

And the new push into the enterprise will give SonicWall a new leg up at a time when companies are struggling to sustain their competitive edge in the marketplace.

"There's no doubt that moving up into the mid-tier segment and enterprise, and competing very well with products, gives us an opportunity to kind of weather the storm."

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