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Websense partners are optimistic, but wary, of what seems to be a sudden about-face toward the channel with new leadership and a slew of new initiatives.
As part of the extensive channel changes, David Roberts, former senior vice president of sales, Americas, along with Geoff Haggart, who handled channel sales for EMEA and APAC, suddenly "stepped down" from their positions earlier this month, leaving gaping channel holes amid the company's extensive channel restructuring effort.
During its North Americas partner conference Thursday, held in San Diego, Websense formally debuted Matt Hynes, the company's new worldwide channel chief, who came on board after serving as vice president of worldwide channel sales at ArcSight. Hynes, who will report to Websense's executive vice president of worldwide sales, Didier Guibal, is taking a more comprehensive global channel role after the company eliminated the regional senior vice president positions. Websense said that Hynes' new role as global channel chief was not intended to replace the eliminated senior vice presidentP roles.
Some partners hail the restructuring as a step in the right direction for the company and contend that Websense's personnel changes and channel rollouts represent an about-face after several tumultuous years of upholding a channel strategy that consistently undermined deals and eroded trust and communication with the channel base.
One Midwest-based partner, who asked to speak off the record, said that during Roberts' tenure, Websense pulled the rug out from under partners by taking some of deals direct at the last minute.
"I think Websense needed to make a change because their program was undermining their partners' ability to commit to Websense," he said. "Maybe [Roberts] was getting hit from above, but it's very difficult for resellers to commit to partners who can just go direct."
Another East Coast VAR who asked to remain anonymous said that in addition to taking deals direct, Websense would also undermine the partner by dropping prices significantly when it took a prospective deal through a distribution channel. "We would be in working with a customer and Websense would be scared to death of losing a deal. So they would go through distributors and have them undercut the price," he said.
However, the recent restructuring could indicate a renewed investment in the channel that they haven't seen in a long time, partners say.
At its partner conference, Websense rolled out a slew of enhancements to its channel program, including a new, simplified margin structure that touts 25 percent margin across all partner tiers.
Websense also launched a two-tiered federal channel program, along with increased margins for deal registration and renewal migration to the WSG and v10K appliance.
In addition, the company rolled out a preferred vendor program, which provides channel partners access to numerous demand-generation tools such as Harte Hanks Telemarketing Services, Binary Pulse direct marketing and appointment setting campaigns, and Bridgemetrics Microsites, used to build branded custom landing pages and microsites.
Next: Websense Execs Say They Are Responding To Partners
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