It was the "change" heard round the channel. Symantec rocked the IT world in July after COO Enrique Salem dropped the bombshell to a group of Wall Street analysts that the company planned to skim off the revenue from its top 900 customers by taking their deals direct, or at least giving them the option of doing so. Also among the proposed channel policy changes was an imminent migration from a two-tier to a one-tier distribution model and revamped subscription renewal policies for a spate of SMB customers.

The announcements elicited a firestorm of outrage and criticism from channel partners serving all market segments, many of whom had already started to notice Symantec's shift away from the channel. Despite the company's historic claims regarding its open and honest communication with its channel, partners said that the once 100 percent channel company fell considerably short by failing to mention any of these changes to their channel.