Symantec To Roll Out New Program Rewarding Value

The new program, slated to launch in December or January, will place a much higher emphasis on rewarding value and less emphasis on rewarding volume sales, said Allyson Seelinger, Symantec&'s vice president of global channel sales and strategies.

“We need to recognize and reward different types of expertise,” Seelinger said.

The current Symantec and Veritas channel programs reflect a strategy focused on driving volume, acknowledged Julie Parrish, former Veritas channel chief and now vice president of enterprise, midmarket and channel marketing at Symantec.

The change in focus is a long time coming, said Steve Barone, president of Creative Breakthroughs, a Symantec partner based in Shelby Township, Mich., who sits on Symantec&'s partner advisory council. “I have fought long and hard for that,” he said.

Barone said that margins on Symantec&'s enterprise products have been slipping into the “no-profit zone” since large resellers such as CDW started selling them. “We have been pushing Symantec to deliver a higher level of certification and reward for those of us who are specialized,” he said. “Frankly, we need to see more money on the high-end products to make it worth our while.”

How the Cupertino, Calif.- based vendor will recognize and reward that value has yet to be determined, Seelinger said. Channel executives are meeting with “hundreds” of partners as well as consultants to create the new plan, she said.

In the interim, it&'s “business as usual” for the Veritas and Symantec channel teams in the field, said Randy Cochran, vice president of channel sales Americas for Symantec. “It&'s really important that we make changes gradually so that we don&'t disrupt our partners&' business or ours,” he said.

Meanwhile, Symantec by mid-August will launch the first bundle combining its security products with backup and recovery offerings from Veritas, Parrish said. Solution providers said it will likely comprise the low-end offerings from both companies, possibly focusing on desktop security and backup.