McAfee Enhances Security Partner Program

The Santa Clara, Calif., security vendor Monday rolled out McAfee Rewards, a sales incentive program targeted at employees of solution providers in McAfee&'s SecurityAlliance partner program.

Under the program, partner sales managers, sales reps and sales engineers earn points for sales of McAfee products that can later be redeemed for merchandise, said David Roberts, senior vice president, North American Channels at McAfee. The program is slated to run through December 2006, Roberts said.

Meanwhile, McAfee last week launched its upgraded partner Web portal, which gives partners access to pre-qualified leads, renewal data and order status information. The portal, dubbed MAX, also serves as a platform for partners to communicate directly with McAfee channel and sales teams.

Robb MacMillan, security practice lead for Intermountain Technology Group, a solution provider and McAfee partner in Boise, Idaho, said the changes to the partner portal are significant. “This really puts us on the same page with McAfee,” he said. “I can go in there and see the deals we&'ve been working on with McAfee reps, the deals we&'ve registered and which customers are coming up for renewals, all in one place.”

Roberts said the new version of the portal is the result of a yearlong effort at McAfee to transition from a direct sales-focused company to a channel-focused company. “It&'s one thing to say you want to be a channel-friendly company, but it&'s a different step to look at all of your backend systems and optimize them for dealing with the channel.”

With the new portal, “the concept of partner relationship management and customer relationship management goes away at McAfee,” Roberts said. “Our partners and our field sales people now use the same system.”