CipherTrust's Year Of 'Hypergrowth' Spawns New Channel Program

"We have been in a hypergrowth mode for the past year, and while 2003 was about building momentum, 2004 is about building the channel," said Ralph Pisani, vice president of channels at CipherTrust, Atlanta.

The CipherTrust Partner Connection is a three-tiered program--Authorized, Premier and Premier Support Certified--for its IronMail e-mail security appliance, which includes spam and fraud prevention, virus and worm protection, policy and content compliance, e-mail privacy and secure e-mail gateway capabilities. The program compensates partners based on training and revenue commitment to the company, Pisani said, and includes a deal-registration policy that extends an additional product discount.

CipherTrust has also introduced a spif program that rewards solution providers when they introduce the company during a customer meeting. Should the prospect result in a CipherTrust sale, the solution provider will receive an additional spif based on the size of the sale. "If the deal is worth $500,000, the reseller receives a $5,000 bounty," Pisani said. "If the deal is $1 million, the reseller gets a $10,000 payout." The spif is payable to either the sales rep or the solution provider company.

"We are excited from a technology perspective to work with CipherTrust, and having a program wrapped around it only makes it stronger," said Trina Doheny, president of Extend Networks, a CipherTrust solution provider in Seattle.

Doheny said CipherTrust makes up about 20 percent of her company's annual sales, a figure she hopes will increase over the next year.