McAfee Launches Channel Partner Community

McAfee, in conjunction with the McAfee Focus 10 and McAfee Channel Partner Day conferences, is launching the McAfee Partner Community. The move is part of a larger McAfee channel acceleration effort that promotes on-premises, SaaS and managed security solutions to partners. How will VARs potentially benefit? Here are some clues from McAfee Global Channel Chief Alex Thurber.

According to Thurber:

“We’re evolving the business and the relationship with the channel. This is what we’re trying to do here, being [part of] that process of electronic communications between the channel and ourselves.”

The McAfee Channel Community has one central goal, Thurber says: Empower partners with ease of use and the ability to accelerate business initiatives and growth. Thurber says McAfee has been investing in new backoffice systems for internal use, along with the new partner portal that will be rolling out in the next couple of months.

Bigger Moves

Meanwhile, McAfee is taking three other steps to assist partners. They include:

• Small and Medium Business (SMB) Partner Acceleration – The initiative will feature the launch of the McAfee Partner Acceleration Center, a one-stop portal for partners to help partners become the Trusted Security Advisor for their SMB customers with Sales Tools and Marketing Assets that guide them through the McAfee SMB sales lifecycle, according to McAfee.
• Flexible Delivery Model Initiative – In 2011 McAfee will launch two new partner programs that address the needs of many small to medium size businesses, the company claims. The effort will address Cloud-based SaaS solutions, Managed Services and Outsourced Services Providers. The SaaS Monthly Designation will be available to all McAfee SecurityAlliance Reseller partners who are looking for improved profitability through a monthly recurring revenue model and features easy access to sales and marketing resources focused on this product line. The Services Provider program that has been running in pilot in EMEA will be the basis for the worldwide launch of the Managed Services Provider and Outsourced Services Provider partner types, McAfee says.
• Emerging Technology Program — This program will allow McAfee to provide a laser focus on key go-to-market partners in a particular region or who demonstrate a particular expertise in these new technology areas (i.e., Virtualization, Mobility and Cloud Services), McAfee says. The invitation-only program will provide training and enablement as well as additional profitability benefits to those partners who invest in the McAfee Emerging Technology Program, McAfee adds.

Bigger Crowd

Thurber says the 2nd annual McAfee Partner Day, held in conjunction with the larger McAfee Focus 10 conference, has roughly 750 registered partners, up dramatically from the 270 partners that attended in 2009. The summit is set to include breakouts, keynotes and other detailed information on the security market.

Based on the moves above, it’s pretty clear McAfee isn’t sitting around wondering how Intel will ultimately manage McAfee’s business and channel partner program. Intel’s buyout of McAfee, announced in August 2010, awaits regulatory approval.

Additional reporting by Joe Panettieri. Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Weekly Newsletter; Webcasts and Resource Center; and via RSS; Facebook;   Identi.ca; Twitter and VARtweet.