Talari Networks launches channel partner program 18 February, 2010 By Mark Cox

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Now that's a great marketing line. But the Cupertino CA-based startup has a unique technology which it believes offers a new approach to building enterprise WANs. By utilizing network bandwidth from the public Internet, its' Adaptive Private Networking technology lets businesses take advantage of lower cost bandwidth without sacrificing business quality, reliability or availability. It does this by combining diverse sources of bandwidth and end-to-end algorithms to apply dynamic, real-time, per-packet traffic engineering.

"The company's founder, Andy Gottlieb, believes in the concept of assuring end to end quality over the public internet," said Tom Pettigrew, Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Talari Networks. "The public internet is a source of abundant and cheap bandwidth --- if you can make it reliable for an enterprise."

Being able to achieve this through Talari's technology means their Mercury family of appliances can leverage provide 30 to 100 times more bandwidth per dollar, reducing cost by 40 to 90 percent while achieving higher reliability than single provider frame relay or MPLS.

"We got our first revenue customers in the third quarter of last year," Pettigrew said. "The product works and people are willing to pay for it. Now is the time when we have to accelerate growth and get it out to the broader market." And to do that, Talari is using a very channel-friendly model, with the intent of driving at least 90 percent of its' business through partners.

Pettigrew said that the task of building a strong channel is helped significantly by the fact they don't have any true competitors in the market, and that their solution is complementary to the WAN optimization vendors rather than competitive with them.

"We have different approaches than the WAN optimization vendors, our products do two different things," he said. "WAN optimization lets you get every last bit out of your pipe. We give more bandwidth and do it cheaply, and that will make the WAN itself work faster."

- Pettigrew said this lack of conflict is a major asset when trying to recruit new WAN-focused partners.

"I can go to any channel partner and say 'you don't have a competitive offering to this. You can take this on and none of your existing vendors will be upset.'"

Pettigrew thinks that at this stage, many of the partners interested in Talari will be smaller ones.

"I believe in doing things that are stage appropriate," he said. "We are a small company. We need innovative partners in this stage, moreso than we need very large ones who may not be as innovative. We are looking at the entrepreneurial, risk-taking ones, who are looking for something that can differentiate themselves in the market -- and who can get higher margins while the product is newer."

The Talari Partner Program has two levels of partnership, Gold and Silver. The program is based on tiered discounts and rewards based on loyalty and value. Opportunity protection and additional discounts for deal registration are also available. The program also contains the typical features partners expect, including a partner portal, a dedicated account team, opportunity protection, free evaluation equipment, lead generation programs, deal registration with additional discounts, a Discretionary MDF program, technical support and training and sales tools.

Gold Partners view Talari as an important element of their business. By demonstrating a higher level of commitment to Talari, Gold Partners receive a higher level of benefits including greater product discounts. Qualifications include two sales staff and two technical staff trained per location.

Silver Partners have access to a variety of partner tools in addition to value-based product discounts. Qualifications include one sales staff and one technical staff trained per location.

There are additional specialist levels for Federal Partners, with specific expertise and focus on winning Federal opportunities, Global Partners with worldwide presence with expertise serving customers in a variety of markets, and distributors.

"We can provide partners with a new and differentiated technology that will let them grow in another area they couldn't before," Pettigrew said. "To build a successful program, you have to allow partners to differentiate themselves." "When I was a reseller I wanted to be the first one out there with something new and different," Pettigrew added. "The ROI on this product is just phenomenal. And that's the Hard ROI, just taking the cost of WAN today compared to the cost after us plus the cost of the product. It's in the 5-7 month range. That's very easy to sell, and there is not a lot of pressure to discount margins."