Juniper’s Smartest Channel Partner Move of 2010
Sometimes a single, simple decision can have a dramatic impact on a channel partner program. Consider the situation at Juniper Networks, where Channel Chief Frank Vitagliano (pictured) plans to host the Juniper Networks Americas Partner Summit May 24-26 in Phoenix. Smart move. Here’s why.
Originally, the so-called J-Partner Summit was scheduled to compete head-on against last week’s Cisco Partner Summit, the HP Americas Partner Conference and the Interop trade show. Standing toe-to-toe against those large networking events would have been foolish. No doubt, Juniper‘s noteworthy channel progress would have been overshadowed by the Cisco vs. HP showdown (real or imagined) in the data center.
Standing Solo in the Spotlight
By shifting dates, Juniper’s Vitagliano can push the networking and security company into the channel spotlight. What will Vitagliano tell J-Partner summit attendees? Vitagliano provided some clues during the recent Ingram Micro VTN conference in Miami.
“Our message to partners will be simple,” said Vitagliano. “The new network is here. Juniper has a point of view. We believe current network trajectories within many businesses are not sustainable in terms of building out the proper bandwidth.”
To The VAR Guy, it sounded like Vitagliano was making a thinly veiled reference to Cisco Systems’ winner-take-all Unified Computing System efforts. Those Cisco UCS efforts, by the way, seem to be catching on with some distributors.
Still, Juniper has a loyal channel following of its own. In preparation for the summit, Juniper has developed integrated marketing and sales plans. The effort includes field marketing professionals who own partner relationships, noted Blaine J. Raddon, VP of sales channels and general business at Juniper Networks. “We’ve funded some new activities to generate leads, while providing content, inside sales support, list and marketing capabilities to our partners.”
No doubt, The VAR Guy is intrigued. And our resident blogger plans to attend
the Juniper Networks Americas Partner Summit. But The VAR Guy will need to stop blogging long enough to actually book his flight to the conference.
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