Symantec Partners Want Details On Services, Acquisitions

With the addition of specializations, services initiatives and a slew of new acquisitions, 2010 has been a year of change at Symantec.

And as partners prepare to board planes bound for the company's 2010 PartnerEngage in Las Vegas, some of the biggest questions they'll want answered are how to sell and support the slew of newly added products, how the company's services strategy will play out and what new technology investments they'll need to make going forward.

No doubt, Symantec's three major acquisitions of PGP, GuardianEdge and VeriSign last spring present new challenges and pose a slew of questions for partners. And in light of a rapidly consolidating IT environment, partners are taking a look at Symantec's strategy macroscopically in an attempt to assess the company's direction and technology investments going forward.

Jonathan Dambrot, managing director of Warren, N.J.-based Prevalent Networks, said that in light of Symantec's strong Q3 numbers he wanted to know specific technology areas in which to invest -- both from Symantec's current portfolio as well as technologies that the company planned to add on down the road.

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"Where should we be investing our resources together? Where do we put our bets? There's no better place than Vegas to find out where we place our bets," Dambrot said. "Today we're winning. It's about 'how do we maximize that'?"

Next: Partners Question Symantec Direction

Kevin McCann, vice president of Continental Resources, based in Bedford, Mass., echoed that the addition of new products through a variety of acquisitions and the larger continuous trend of IT consolidation led him to wonder about Symantec's subsequent direction and areas of interest, which would have a direct bearing on his own company's resources, outlook and product strategy.

"It might be difficult to give us snapshots of where they're going but the more insights they can give us in regards to direction, the better," he said. "As they get into these other areas they can help us plan and delegate with our limited technical resources."

Partners say that Symantec seems to have a much clearer message and direction in general than a few years ago, while cutting back on business areas -- such as services -- that directly competed with those of their partners.

"Two years ago, it was a different story. We were unsure of what the business environment was," Dambrot said. "Now we want to just figure out, assuming it's status quo, where do we win?"

One of the biggest priorities for partners is getting a handle on Symantec's strategies around professional services, especially as the company continues to hand over its services business to partners.

Next: Partners Want Answers For Services Strategy

David Sockol, CEO of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Emagined Security, said that he hoped that the company would provide a clearer message and a standardized procedure regarding its approach to its services strategy "so we can understand how they expect us to work on opportunities because right now. I think every consulting organization is taking their own approach," he said.

McCann said that his company experienced a strong uptick in business -- especially in the areas of backup and DLP -- since Symantec's 2009 initiative to hand services to partners, but now faced challenges in much longer lead times that tended to be several months, not weeks, out.

McCann said that one solution would be to encourage partnerships between the partners, pointing to Cisco as an example of a vendor that fostered collaboration between channel partners. McCann expressed that he hoped to see Symantec facilitate similar teamwork between its solution providers in order to better approach customers with comprehensive solutions.

"That's another wish list thing, that Symantec could help us team together," McCann said. "The portfolio keeps getting so huge, to be in experts in all of (the solutions) is a difficult thing."

Other partners who have already heavily invested in Symantec services and related specializations were hungry for details. Feris Rifai, president of San Francisco-based Bay Dynamics, said he wanted to know how Symantec's specializations were going to evolve, and what complementary areas should be explored. "Tell me more about these programs. What are they doing from an investment perspective to continue to make sure they're going to do well," Rifai said.

Next: Partners Struggle With Disparate Products/Programs

Partners say although they're hopeful about the profitability and integration of Symantec's spring acquisitions, they still need to know how to incorporate a wide array of disparate Symantec offerings into their existing portfolio.

In particular, Sockol said that the acquisitions presented his company new problems in establishing vendor and potential customer relationships and getting his team up to speed on a barrage of new technologies, contending that it became increasingly challenging to stay on top of the ever-widening product portfolio. "Just having conversations with company after company, trying to bet a bunch of relationships going -- I don't think that's the best approach," Sockol said, adding that he hoped to hear a way Symantec could help bring the channel together, especially for organizations that invest in one side of the house and "can't afford to get someone for everything."

Meanwhile, VeriSign and the integration of its channel program represented another burning question for partners.

"I'm hoping to hear a little bit more on their thought process on what the big picture is for VeriSign and all the new acquisitions," Sockol said. "Some of them make perfect sense. On others we don't understand the real implications of where they're to go and we don’t understand how the channel fits into that. Should the channel be involved and how can we help them?"