Secure Computing Expanding Channel Program in North America

The company's long-term goal is to generate 90 percent of its revenue from a worldwide channel, recruit 30 new top-tier VARs and 200 secondary partnerships with resellers, said Chris Peterson, vice president of OEM and channel sales at Secure Computing, San Jose, Calif.

The multitier program will be based on the amount and type of products partners sell as well as customer support capabilities. Platinum partners need to become certified and sell and support the SafeWord authentication products, Sidewinder firewall appliances and SmartFilter Web filtering products.

Gold and Silver partners do not have to become certified and are supported by the company's technical and sales team.

"We are growing at an astonishing rate, and we need to leverage our partners to meet today's business climate," Peterson said. "Our channel program has been a big success internationally and, to a certain extent, in North America. However, we are launching a stronger commitment to the channel for 2004 and beyond."

This commitment includes a channel-neutral compensation plan, in which no Secure Computing field employee is paid to take business direct. The company is also hiring a senior executive for North America, has realigned its marketing organization and budgets to focus on creating sales for channel partners, and has a dedicated channel account management team in place, said Peterson.

The company is also promising product, pricing and purchasing enhancements for partners. The company's firewall appliances, for example, are available as an add-on sale to other vendors' applications and products, and the Sidewinder firewall appliance will soon include add-ons for sales through the channel such as antivirus, spam filtering, clientless SSL VPN and Web filtering, he said.

"And our SafeWord authentication products have already been designed and branded for sale with several products that already have a strong channel presence," said Peterson.

Secure Computing offers SafeWord for Check Point Software Technologies, Nortel Networks and Citrix Systems, for example.

The company's SmartFilter and N2H2 Web filtering products are now available as add-ons to caching appliances, proxies and firewalls as well, he said.

The company is also standardizing pricing for its products and has reduced the pricing on the products to increase margins for partners.

Secure Computing will be work with Tech Data, Westcon and Alternative Technology to reach resellers and support them, but Secure Computing's sales and marketing teams will do the "heavy lifting" in terms of supporting and training partners, Peterson said.