Symantec Gets Dedicated Space At Tech Data's Solutions Center

Symantec joins Cisco Systems as the second vendor to have a dedicated room at Tech Data's 6,000-square-foot Solutions Center. The Cisco space was opened in October 2008.

"Symantec is one of our largest vendors. They had a presence in our Solutions Center, but they didn't have a specific room. With technology today, it's incredibly important to show how things work and to be able to do proof of concepts," said Stacy Nethercoat, vice president of software product marketing at Tech Data.

Symantec has its own solutions center on the West Coast and the Tech Data room gives the vendor a permanent place on the East Coast to demonstrate its products, said Tricia Atchison, senior director of channel marketing at Symantec.

"The focus of briefing customers is to bring in customers, show them the technology with more than a hands-on approach," Atchison said. "At our Partner Engage event, we talked about the four R's: readiness, relevance, revenue and reputation. The Solutions Center fits in from a readiness perspective. It's an opportunity for us to work with Tech Data and bring in [solution provider] partners from an education standpoint. It's also an opportunity to bring in [end users, which] ties into driving more revenue."

Symantec products installed at the Tech Data Solutions Center include Endpoint Protection, Backup Exec, Backup Exec System Recovery, Enterprise Vault, Veritas NetBackup, Altiris Client Management Suite and Data Loss Prevention (DLP).

Both Nethercoat and Atchison said solution providers' close rates tend to be higher for customers that are brought into a Solutions Center, but neither could quantify the difference.

"Symantec's portfolio has broadened to soup to nuts over the years. VARs can come in for certain solution and show customers how well the ecosystem works together. That enables a conversation that solves more problems for customer. And it's a path to future services opportunities for the VAR," Nethercoat said.