The Blue Coat Channel Advantage Program members are a community of Blue Coat-approved solution providers, including value added resellers, system integrators, and distributors. The primary objective of the Channel Advantage Program is to foster joint success by providing compelling top- and bottom-line growth opportunities to Blue Coat partners.
The enhancements available to members of the Blue Coat Channel Advantage Program include the following new programs and features:
Evaluation product program: The BlueBox Evaluation Program assists solution providers in supporting pre-sales product evaluations for prospective Blue Coat customer opportunities, as well as recreating specific customer environments to test proof-of-concept designs. Evaluation equipment is available at a substantial discount to approved solution providers under this program, and can be sold through after installation at customer sites.
Support provider program: The BlueTouchSM Support Partner Program enables partners to achieve greater profitability while providing outstanding service quality to the end customer. This select program allows Blue Coat-certified organizations to market, sell, and deliver their branded service offerings backed by Blue Coat support. BlueTouch Certified Partners provide first- and second- line technical support to the end customer, and receive incremental price reductions and rebates on Blue Coat services while enhancing the end customer relationship.
Discounting and deal registration improvements: To boost channel partner competitiveness, Blue Coat has changed its partner pricing to provide balanced discounts to facilitate global deployments. In addition, Blue Coat will offer the benefits of deal registration to all partners, regardless of level.
Sales and marketing tools and support: Blue Coat is initiating a Virtual Marketing Agency, which will provide partners with a turnkey marketing solution, at no cost, for implementing partner-branded Blue Coat campaigns. In addition, Blue Coat has developed new sales and marketing tools to educate and maintain a higher level of knowledge about Blue Coat solutions. Blue Coat will provide select tools in localized languages to better serve solution providers in Blue Coat’s top geographies.
Sales engineer training and certification: Blue Coat is introducing a new course specifically designed for channel sales engineers to better assist in pre-sales and post-sales deployments. The course will be offered at Blue Coat headquarters, Blue Coat Authorized Training Center locations around the world, as well as via regional Partner Academies starting early summer.
“As a Packeteer Solutions provider Open Reality is very pleased that Blue Coat has a proactive, value based, channel policy,” commented Duncan Little, managing director of Open Reality. “We are looking forward to introducing our skills and experience to this channel and anticipate that the synergy between our customers and the solutions Blue Coat provide will add significant value to our business this year.”
“As a well established, global Blue Coat systems integrator, Dimension Data sees great value in the updated channel program,” said Jonas Thulin, vice president of Business Development, Dimension Data. “We are especially enthusiastic about the BlueBox Evaluation Program that will give us and our clients improved, early access to the latest Blue Coat technology for proof-of-concept and customized designs. In addition, the updated BlueTouch Support Partner Program matches our vision of providing our clients with full lifecycle services, from design to ongoing support and maintenance.”
“We are committed to the increasing success of our channel partners and their ability to effectively serve and support customers,” said Jim Harold, vice president of Worldwide Channel Sales, Blue Coat Systems. “The new enhancements to the Channel Advantage Program provide partners with more ways to extend our combined reach into key markets as well as to better enable global deployments that are required by today’s medium and large enterprises.”