Enterasys Touts New Security Plans
In a multimillion-dollar branding campaign also launching this week, Enterasys hopes to differentiate itself from market leader Cisco Systems by focusing on its strategy to build more intelligence, such as security features, into its networking hardware.
"We do it today. We've been doing it for years. Cisco's talking about getting there," said Cosmo Santullo, executive vice president of worldwide sales and service at Enterasys, Andover, Mass., contrasting his company's new "Networks That Know" tagline with Cisco's recently launched Intelligent Information Networks initiative.
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Cosmo Santullo: Security strategy will differentiate Enterasys from Cisco.
As part of the strategy, Enterasys is launching the Secure Networks Certified Technology Partner Program, an initiative for vendor and channel partners that certifies third-party products and services for use within the vendor's Secure Networks architecture.
Through the program, Enterasys plans to share best practices with its channel partners to help them build up their services capabilities around security, Santullo said.
Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J., is the first to join the program.
The new partner program is the latest in a series of steps Enterasys has taken to reach out to channel partners since Santullo, former CEO of security appliance vendor SonicWall, came on board in October.
To foster better relations between Enterasys' direct-sales force and its channel partners, Santullo has provided incentives for his 10 regional sales managers to recruit and drive training to new solution providers.
As a result, the company has started to rebuild regional resources that were previously scaled back, said Jeff Sinclair, vice president of Pacific Star Communications, a solution provider in Portland, Ore.
"They're definitely reinvigorating their channel program," he said.