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posted on 09 June 2008 12:55

09 June 2008 – Riverbed Technology, the technology and market leader in wide-area data services (WDS), today announced the launch of the Riverbed® Partner Network (RPN) VAR and Distributor Programs for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

The RPN is a newly fortified worldwide channel program that enables and rewards channel partners that distribute and resell Riverbed award-winning technology. The program will be rolled out worldwide, with the first introduction of the RPN in EMEA in May 2008. New enhancements include VAR categorisation, Marketing Development Funds (MDF), channel rewards and a program to enable VADs to become authorised trainers.

“Riverbed is committed to working with its partners to build better and more successful practices,” said Bertrand Yansouni, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Riverbed. “Riverbed technology leadership and the business value provided by its WDS solutions, combined with the significant new investment that the company is making in the RPN, delivers increased value to our partners and, ultimately, our mutual customers.”

One of the biggest new values that this new program offers is deal registration for the EMEA market. “We’ve had deal registration in place in the United States for over a year and it is continually noted by our partners as one of the best programs they work with,” adds Yansouni. “Our partners feel like we protect the investment they make in working to develop and close Riverbed business, which builds a sense of teamwork and partnership between us and our partner community.”

The new RPN Program is built on a foundation of focusing resource and investment in partners who are committed to working closely with Riverbed to build successful practices based on Riverbed solutions. “The program is intended to recognise the partners who have made investments in Riverbed, and accelerate their growth with us”, Yansouni said. The new program categorises its VARs into levels -- Silver, Gold and Platinum. Platinum level partners will begin to earn rebates from Riverbed in the fourth quarter of 2008 – a first for Riverbed.

The program also recognises the critical role that Riverbed distributors play as business partners in the company’s channel development efforts. “We are now offering a Marketing Development Funds (MDF) Program for our distributors,” said Johnna Bowley, senior director of worldwide channel and partner marketing at Riverbed. “The more aggressive MDF Program for our distributor partners allows us to work together as business partners to more aggressively target developing VARs and jointly invest in them to grow their business.”

Channel Enablement

The RPN Program is designed to equip Riverbed channel partners for success. Riverbed provides its partners with market-leading products to drive incremental revenue and then supports RPN VARs’ ability to market and sell those solutions with sales and technical training and certification, as well as marketing, sales, and technical tools that help drive success in competitive situations.

As part of the new program rollout, Riverbed introduced a new training program that includes the “Authorised Training Provider” (ATP) program for distributors. The ATP allows Riverbed distributors to become authorised to conduct official Riverbed training courses for both resellers and customers. “Certification is a crucial element of the new program”, said Ms. Bowley. “This gives our distributors an incremental revenue source, and gives our VARs more local training classes available to build their competency in Riverbed products and solutions.”

Channel Development

With the RPN, Riverbed has built a highly channel-centric sales model. Riverbed provides joint business planning for partnership development and provides inside and outside sales teams support. In addition, Riverbed provides its RPN members with marketing initiatives, including lead generation and awareness programs.

Channel Rewards

RPN members who provide strong commitments to Riverbed receive generous benefits that are designed to both accelerate future revenue growth and reward current success. “Riverbed is known for offering strong upfront margins,” said Yansouni. “This rewards program allows us to add many other benefits to the overall program and still keep the aggressive discount structure”.

“We’ve been a Riverbed distributor since the early days,” said David Galton-Fenzi, Group Sales Director for Zycko. “The new program investments Riverbed is making will help us to become an even closer and more successful business partner, driving joint VAR account development.”

Steelhead Products

Riverbed WDS solutions enable organisations of all sizes to overcome a host of severe problems, including poor application performance and insufficient bandwidth at remote sites. By speeding the performance of applications between data centers, remote offices and mobile workers by five to 50 times and in some cases up to 100 times, Riverbed’s award-winning Steelhead WDS products enable companies to consolidate IT, improve backup and replication processes to ensure data integrity, and improve staff productivity and collaboration. Steelhead products have been deployed in organisations ranging from the world’s largest corporations with offices around the globe to small companies with a couple of sites that are just miles apart. To learn more, view Riverbed’s demo: www.riverbed.com/pr/jack.

^{[Formatted by Majid Soltani.]}