Riverbed adds two-tier distribution as part of channel enhancement 26 January, 2010 By Mark Cox

PromoPipeline Exclusive Channel Promotions Find Out How You Can Make Money Today! ENROLL FREE! >> Factory Direct Should Not be Cheaper William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Cloud Ecosystem II: A Candid Conversation with Oracle Beth Vanni - Amazon Consulting Cloud Ecosystem: A Candid Conversation with Rackspace Hosting Beth Vanni - Amazon Consulting Channel Manager Compensation William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels Financial Expertise William Vanderbilt - Innovative Learning Channels

Before now, Riverbed dealt directly with its' resellers in North America while using distributors in Europe and Asia. Adding Arrow and Avnet ATS and moving to a two-tiered distribution model in North America is designed to both extend their reach and help their resellers drive more value.

"We wanted a value-based distribution kind of offering," said Johnna Bowley, senior director of worldwide channel and partner marketing at Riverbed Technology. "We are an enterprise-class company with a solutions selling model, and these distributors are very focused on that. We tend to sell with many other products, not just as a point product for bandwidth reduction. Their value- added services for technical certification were key to us, as were the people they will have dedicated to Riverbed."

Riverbed has also added new components to the four-level partner program it launched last year.

"We are aligning specific partners to specific customer needs, although they are not hard lines drawn of 'you must sell here and you must sell there'," Bowley said. "While we have different types of partners, our goal is to keep a level playing field between them,"

Three new partner programs have been added, for Large Account Resellers (LAR), Global Resellers, who are similar to OEMs except that the Riverbed solutions involved are branded as Riverbed, and Service Providers.

The global partners in the program are EMC and HP ProCurv.

"Either they or their partners can resell us as the global partner's SKU, so we are sitting on their price list for specific products, optimized for DR," Bowley said.

The Service Provider program is designed for clearly defined large global customers with complex technology needs who offer Riverbed solutions as a managed service, and not for VARs.

"Many VARs looking for entrances to the managed services space don't fit in this program," Bowley said. "They are really into networking monitoring, which is a specialization in the VAR program. On the other hand, the Service Provider advantages are specifically only for managed services."

"This doesn't mean service providers can't resell, but if they do, that's under another program, so the VAR isn't disadvantaged ."

Riverbed is also making a push into the SME market with the introduction of a dedicated sales team to work with VARs and a lead generation program.

"This is to help smaller regional partners who focus on the SME market," Bowley said. "The inside sales team basically becomes account managers for the VARs. Before we had just one channel sales person in the field. Now the inside sales team provides the primary point of content."

Riverbed is also introducing a specialization program for all partner categories, with three specializations: RASP -- Riverbed Authorized Support Partner; RATP -- Riverbed Authorized Training Partner; and RACP -- Riverbed Authorized Consulting Partner.

"The RASP specialization is to help partners who may want to become a Level 1 or 2 Support Partner," Bowley said. "We find these usually are already Support Partners for another vendor. The consulting specialization is for partners trying to drive professional services, and the Training Partner specialization is more focused towards distributors."

Finally, Riverbed is also enhancing some of its' VAR programs that were introduced last year. These include pre-sales training and certification programs to help partners be more self sufficient selling their products and solutions, and increased MDF and rebate offerings to drive growth.