Last month’s Symantec Vision 2013 in Las Vegas gave you a glimpse into what our plans are during the next year for the company, our customers and you, our partners. Setting the tone for the event was Symantec CEO and President Steve Bennett, who explained that, “We can’t get to where we need to go with evolution. Change like this requires a revolution.” As part of the “revolution”, Steve reiterated that we are making strategic, positive changes that will not only revitalize the company but that will provide you with more opportunities as a Symantec partner. After all, we see partners as critical members of our team that offer broad capabilities...

Everyone knows that having the best tools available can make all the difference in getting things done, as anyone who has ever used a shoe as a hammer can attest to. At Symantec, we are constantly working to create new tools that will improve our partners’ ability to provide Symantec products to their customers, driving profitability and success. And one of our key methods for doing this is through our Specialization program, which gives our partners the opportunity to differentiate themselves from other solutions providers, earn incentives and maximize profitability.

To complement our other 12 Specialization offerings within our partner program, we added a new Mobility Solution Specialization. Because of the enormous pressure being placed on businesses today to allow employees to use mobile devices – including employee-owned smartphones and tablets – this new Specialization is...

Our channel partners have always been on the front lines when it comes to solving problems for businesses, by bringing the right solutions into the workplace. In the next few years, for example, we anticipate a fundamental shift in the use and the safety of the cloud – a future where the cloud is safer than the data center. In this future of secure clouds, employees will leverage multiple complex clouds for storing all kinds of business and personal information and have the ability to seamlessly access this information without worrying about how it’s protected. Behind the scenes, IT will be full of specialized employees, each performing one essential function with the help of the latest solutions ensuring organizations continue to maintain their security posture.

We have some work to do before we get to that point, of course. Right now businesses are dealing with rapidly growing, unstructured information that has no clear ownership and is constantly in danger of...

The first quarter of our fiscal FY’13 calendar year has been focused on partner engagement.  We have been busy collaborating with our partners, participating and presenting in many events across North America. 

We recently participated in XChange Public Sector on June 6-8 in Charlotte, NC.  Over 120 partners were in attendance.  Symantec presented in a total three boardroom sessions to the SLED and Federal partners. In addition, we got the opportunity to have a booth at the Vendor Tech Fair and met the partner’s one on one. 

We also held our “Enterprise Partner Advisory Council” meeting on June 6-7 at our Symantec headquarters in Mountain View, CA.  This allowed us the chance to get in front of our partners and learn what is top of mind when partnering with Symantec and how we can work towards bridging the gap.  We spent valuable time going over such topics as...