ServGate Enhances Partner Program

The program reflects a trend among vendors that recognizes the need to target small and midsize businesses with familiar go-betweens. It features three tiers that include increased access for VARs to ServGate's products, training and sales resources as they become more involved in the company's solutions.

"Our old program had no real requirements because we haven't worked much with resellers," says Craig Valerino, ServGate's director of channel marketing. "But our SMB products are best served by small and midsize VARs who sell on a more active relationship with their customers."

Valerino acknowledges that ServGate's products still face an uphill climb to win accounts from some of its larger and more established competitors, but he says VARs will have a good story to sell.

"Some of our competitors are better known and have been in the market longer, but our pricing model gives us more flexibility and scalability," he says. The company already scored one big global win, signing a deal last month with Digital China, an Asian IT services company, for millions of dollars worth of its EdgeForce security products.

The program is riding on the surge in demand for the EdgeForce appliances, which add Web caching, URL filtering and edge-based virus scanning to their existing firewall/VPN platform. The platform uses a modular architecture that allows end users to pay as they go, much like in a subscription model.

"Our software upgrades mean customers don't have to replace the box," Valerino says. "That lets the VARs make solution sales rather than product sales, and shows customers that they're watching out for their interests."

Rolling the added features into existing boxes amount to security services that are becoming quickly commoditized, says Jim Walker, ServGate's product marketing manager.

"This is a lot like what happened with routers in the mid-'90s," he says. "From the channel's point of view, any application that bundle services into one box makes a lot more sense."