The Blue Coats Are Coming--With A Push Toward Partnerships

Blue Coat Systems is prepping the launch of its first formal deal registration program and a new top-level tier for its Partner Alliance program.

The security and application acceleration company’s moves come as part of a reinvigorated channel effort, said Cindy Kelly, vice president of North American channels at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company. “We’ve recently reenergized our efforts with channel partners,” she said.

Best known as a vendor of antivirus and secure gateway products, Blue Coat’s new channel push comes in part because of its aim to expand its product offerings. The company last month added application acceleration to its portfolio via the launch of its MACH5 (Multiprotocol Accelerated Caching Hierarchy) technology for speeding application performance across the WAN. As a result, the company is now recruiting partners with both networking and security expertise to represent its expanded lineup, said Steve Mullaney, vice president of worldwide marketing.

“Security companies and security VARs are going to go away because security is too important. It’s not just a niche market anymore,” Mullaney said. “It’s going to get integrated into the infrastructure.”

Blue Coat currently has approximately 150 active North American partners and plans to double that over the next 12 months, Kelly said.Mark Sollazo, president and CEO of SynerComm, Brookfield, Wis., said the new deal registration program should help his margins and keep competitors from swooping in with low bids on Blue Coat products, which typically carry a long sales cycle.

“Blue Coat has the longest sales cycle of the solutions we represent in the security space, usually three to nine months with an average of three to four meetings,” Sollazo said. “If they have an opportunity registration program, my people will make the investment.”

The company now is working to finalize details of the forthcoming deal registration program, which it plans to introduce at its partner conference in May and launch soon thereafter.

Also at the conference, Blue Coat will launch a new top-level Elite tier to its partner program, which will carry a $4 million annual sales requirement, Kelly said. Currently, the Blue Coat program includes two levels: Premier, which carries a $2 million revenue requirement, and Authorized, which includes a $500,000 sales minimum.