[October 27, 2014] |
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McAfee Outlines Channel Initiatives to Help Partners Differentiate and Profit
LAS VEGAS --(Business Wire)--
McAfee, part of Intel (News - Alert) Security, today kicked off the company's fourth
annual Partner Summit, providing nearly 700 channel partners from around
the globe with the opportunity to engage with McAfee (News - Alert) executives and
customers. During this year's event, McAfee is unveiling several key
channel initiatives to help partners build sustainable security
practices. These initiatives are part of McAfee's commitment to continue
to innovate and invest in driving partner differentiation and
profitability.
"Together with our partners we have a massive opportunity to lead the
security market transformation," said Gavin Struthers, senior vice
president of Worldwide Channel Operations at McAfee, part of Intel
Security. "In order to do so, we must 'THINK BIG' about how we
partner together to protect our mutual customers as they embrace a new
computing era and deal with today's more sophisticated threat landscape."
Partner Program
The purchase behaviors and buying centers for security technology have
changed drastically in the last couple of years. As a result, McAfee is
announcing a new, more flexible partner program framework that allows
partners to evolve their business models and adapt to the changing
customer landscape. Highlights of the new partner program include:
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New Name: As part of continued integration with Intel, effective
January 1, McAfee is changing the name of its SecurityAlliance
Program to the Intel Security Partner Program.
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Simplified Solution Competencies: In an effort to reduce
program complexity, McAfee will consolidate from five product
competencies to three solution competencies: Endpoint Security,
Network Security and Security Management.
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Removing Baseline Certifications & Expanding Continuing Training:
Continuously streamlining training requirements is a critical element
to success for any partner program. McAfee is removing the need for
partners to complete Baseline Certifications and is expanding
Continuing Education to give all partners the flexibility to earn
credits for training that is most relevant to their business. This
change results in an approximate 30 percent reduction in overall
training requirements for McAfee Elite Partners.
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Programs to Specializations: Security is a rapidly changing
market, requiring a flexible channel program that can quickly and
easily integrate programs as well as add new or acquired technologies.
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The Managed Services Specialization, available Jan. 1, 2015,
integrates the current Managed Service Provider Program into a
specialization to streamline requirements and optimize benefits.
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The Authorized Support Specialization, available Q2 2015,
integrates the current MASP (McAfee Authorized Support Provider)
Program into a specialization in an effort to scale the program by
providing additional qualifying partners the opportunity to tap
into this additional revenue stream.
Partner Enablement
McAfee is committed to continuously looking for ways to enhance its
enablement tools and training to help its partners succeed. In 2014
McAfee identified enablement as an area of focus and tripled its
investment and drove a 40+ percent increase in Continuing Education
participation. The next phase of enablement enhancements are:
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CloudRunner Platform: The new CloudRunner Platform is a free,
simple, on-demand platform that enables partners to access McAfee's
product portfolio via the cloud. The platform makes it easier and
faster to deliver product demonstrations to customers, which can
accelerate sales cycles and help to increase profitability by lowering
the cost of sales. With CloudRunner, partners can build a demo
environment in an average of five minutes without the need to have an
appliance, box or virtual machine set up in a customer's environment.
CloudRunner will be available in early November and will include,
McAfee Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), McAfee Endpoint, and McAfee
Network Security Platform (NSP) environments.
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Post-Sales Services Enablement: IDC (News - Alert) is projecting in 2015 the
total addressable market for Security System Integration Services will
be more than $12 billion1. To help strengthen a partner's
implementation services, we are introducing post-sales services
training and certifications. There are eight, four-day, instructor led
Post-Sales Services Enablement, including NGFW, McAfee Security
Information Event Management, McAfee e-Policy Orchestrator, NSP,
McAfee Host Intrusion (News - Alert) Prevention, McAfee Advanced Threat Defense,
McAfee Drive Encryption, McAfee Application Control and McAfee Change
Control. Upon passing the associated exam, course participants are
recognized as a Certified McAfee Security Specialist (CMSS),
validating their installation, configuration, management and basic
architecture knowledge.
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Creating a Service Delivery Specialization: This will be the
first Specialization built under the new partner program framework. It
will also be the first McAfee Specialization that uses the CMSS
certification as a core requirement. This specialization, available in
the second half of 2015, will enable partners to more effectively
deliver implementation services which are instrumental in driving
partner profitability and customer satisfaction.
Partner Experience
McAfee is in constant pursuit of finding new ways to drive partner
success through increased partner efficiency. Today we are making two
key channel partner experience announcements:
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Partner 360 Dashboard: The Partner 360 Dashboard provides
partners with a detailed analysis of their performance and
profitability, allowing them to make better business decisions. It
provides a detailed view into approximately 10 different business
indicators, including sales performance, rebate and marketing
development funds. The platform will be piloted with a select group of
North America partners in Q4 2014 with a broader roll out aimed for
the first half of 2015.
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SMARTmarketing Platform - Think Big, Win Big: McAfee is
committed to helping channel partners make money and more easily turn
prospects into leads. To help drive this effort, McAfee has made a
significant investment in a new marketing platform as part of the
McAfee SMARTmarketing initiative to give partners the tools needed to
run their own marketing activities including syndicated web content,
email marketing, social media syndication and website analytics. To
register go to: McAfee
SMARTmarketing.
The McAfee Partner Summit is being held in conjunction with McAfee FOCUS
14 at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas between Oct. 26-29. For more
information on Partner Summit news and information please search #mfeps14
or check out the McAfee
Channel blog.
About Intel Security
McAfee is now part of Intel Security. With its Security Connected
strategy, innovative approach to hardware-enhanced security, and unique
Global Threat Intelligence, Intel Security is intensely focused on
developing proactive, proven security solutions and services that
protect systems, networks, and mobile devices for business and personal
use around the world. Intel Security is combining the experience and
expertise of McAfee with the innovation and proven performance of Intel
to make security an essential ingredient in every architecture and on
every computing platform. Intel Security's mission is to give everyone
the confidence to live and work safely and securely in the digital
world. www.intelsecurity.com.
¹ IDC Report: Worldwide and U.S. Professional Security Services
2013-2017 Forecast
Note: McAfee is a trademark or registered trademark of McAfee, Inc. in
the United States and other countries. Other names and brands may be
claimed as the property of others.
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