iRise Launches Alliance Program

The three-tiered Alliance Advantage Program is designed to help systems integrators and ISVs use iRise software to build demos to win sales engagements and to set the development requirements for applications to be deployed across an enterprise, said Sherrick Murdoff, vice president of business development at iRise, El Segundo, Calif.

Application Simulator lets business analysts use a combination of text and visual cues to build a simulated application in a whiteboard environment and then run the program to see how it would behave in a deployment situation. That allows them to find possible errors or missing requirements before the application is coded by the development team and deployed.

The Strategic level is the highest level of the new alliance program, "reserved for those who have an enterprise-wide investment" in iRise, Murdoff said. Strategic partners receive 12 free training seats for iRise certification training and have access to 24 free marketing copies of iRise Application Simulator, to be used when presenting demonstrations to potential clients.

Partners at the Strategic level must provide iRise with at least 24 sales leads for the year, as well as maintain six iRise-certified individuals on staff. They also must deliver at least $1 million in accumulated revenue over the year, Murdoff said. Companies already signed up at this level include Tata Consultancy Services and BEA Systems, he said.

The next level of partnership is Premier, which requires that partners maintain two iRise-certified staff members and deliver on at least $500,000 in revenue and 12 sales leads for the year, Murdoff said. In return, Premier partners get six free copies of iRise Application Simulator and six free developer training seats. Macquarium, an Atlanta-based regional systems integrator, and Vivare, a global application development services company in Plano, Texas, have joined the iRise program at the Premier level, Murdoff said.

The Select level is the entry level of iRise's alliance program. iRise has set no revenue expectations for partners at this level, but they must pass on at least six sales leads in a year and maintain two staff members trained--but not certified--in iRise Application Simulator, Murdoff said. They also receive two free copies of iRise software.

The goal of the Select level is to find out which partners at that level will prove most valuable to iRise in the long run, Murdoff said. "We will enable them to our greatest ability so they can move up to the Premier level as quickly as possible," Murdoff said. "This way, we can weed out who will be contributing partners and who will not." Partners that have joined at the alliance program's entry level include Blackstone Technology and Object Partners, he said.

Of the 17 partners currently in the program, 15 are systems integrators. iRise hopes to double the number of partners in the program over the next six months, Murdoff said.

In conjunction with the Alliance Advantage Program, iRise is offering a rewards program based on partner loyalty. According to Murdoff, through the program, partners can accumulate points for engaging in various co-marketing, co-branding and co-selling activities with iRise. They can redeem the points for rewards, such as additional iRise software or training seats; iRise logo merchandise like golf balls, MP3 players and clocks; and gift packages for dinners at restaurants or to play golf at resorts in their area, he said.

Started in 1996 as an application development and services firm, iRise began developing its flagship Application Simulator tool several years ago as way to make the requirements phase of a project more efficient for a development team.