Sun expands its software channel program 3 November, 2008 By Vanessa Ho

PromoPipeline Exclusive Channel Promotions Find Out How You Can Make Money Today! ENROLL FREE! >> SaaS Trumps Social Media Mike Dubrall - Gilwell Group How to Evaluate Training William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Please join me at the Vendor Channel Management Summit in San Francisco Robert M. Cohen - Integrated mar.com Discount or Payment for Services? William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Goal Setting William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels

As part of Sun's Partner Advantage program, the Open Access Channel Program gives resellers a simple, no-barrier-to-entry option for gaining access to Sun's software portfolio. New resellers can grow their businesses by expanding their product portfolios to include Sun software solutions. Distributors can grow their businesses by recruiting and cultivating new partner relationships focused on selling Sun software with little investment and risk. Existing partners who have already invested in Sun software will continue to receive the extensive program benefits that are available only to Sun Partner Advantage Program participants.

"This announcement marks a significant enhancement to building our software channel strategy around the Sun Partner Advantage program that exists out there today," said Bill Cate, senior director of Global Channel Marketing with Sun.

He added that Open Access offers channel partners worldwide a simplified engagement with software vendors, easier access to the sale of products and speed of access to those products.

"Open Access is a new contractual model that permits our distributors globally to appoint and sell to its own resellers products that are in the Sun Open Access product portfolio," Cate noted.

Sun's new Software Specialties enable partners to expand their integration services expertise for high value services-rich deployments as well as grow top line revenue and margins and differentiate themselves from their competitors by providing customers more value with comprehensive solutions. Software Specialties provide a new entry point into the Sun Partner Advantage Program for partners focused on providing these high-value integration and consulting services to solve their customers' most urgent business problems including the need to quickly develop new applications, run them more securely, connect with more customers, protect user identities and provide a more flexible infrastructure for their company's growth. The program provides a framework for partners to engage with Sun and build successful practices around software technologies that solve customer problems. It gives integration and consulting partners the necessary tools and intellectual capital to sell and deploy customer solutions around Sun software, including identity management, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), open storage, Sun xVM Ops Center, xVM Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and MySQL. The new framework makes it easy for partners to build Specialties around a number of technologies to match their needs as they grow into new areas.

"We need to have partners with deep skills in our technologies and we also we need to make it easier for partners to get access to our software. This is really about giving partners the ability to specialize in different areas of our technology as we do have a broad portfolio of product," said Lisa Marselli, director of software marketing with Sun.

Cate added that the specialties program has been designed to deepen the partners selling and technical deployment expertise. Highlights of the Software Specialties program include that it gives partners access to resources, tools and training to support selling and deployment expertise. It also enables partner-led engagements as oppose to relying on Sun all the time for these kinds of services. Software Specialties also allow partners to address specific markets and business needs. Another highlight is that it enables customers to easily identify partners with specialized expertise. As well, Sun will provide specialty branding for each of these specialties.

"It provides new entry points for software-only partners," said Cate.

Marselli added that the new programs provide numerous opportunities for partners. For example, they give partners the opportunity to sell subscriptions, sell Sun services and also opportunities for partners to develop their own services practices.

"We are going to turn to our partners as part of our growth strategy around software to try and leverage their ability to get into new accounts," she said.

Open Access and Software Specialties programs will be a global introduction and to participate, partners should contact their local Sun sales representative. In addition, a comprehensive set of materials for the Software Specialties program will be available on the Sun partner portal. For Open Access, partners can get information directly on Sun's website.As well, partners and distributors can register their interest in the program on the site. In addition, partners can find a list of participating distributors.

"The key focus [of the programs] is for midmarket growth and new customer capture," said Cate.