Mitel drives VAR deals

Communications vendor Mitel is aiming to cause a splash with other vendors' VARs by bolstering partner financing deals, writes CRN-UK.

The Canadian vendor's UK sales director, Enda Kenneally, claimed: “The key thing a vendor needs to do in this climate is take care of existing channels and customers. But Cisco is putting up its prices and Nortel's long-term viability is challenged so there is a chance to be aggressive. We have focused on selective channel recruitment.”

Kenneally claimed Mitel had earmarked three key ways to support VARs, the first being to ensure money is spent on developing new products. She indicated being communicative and providing assistance with lead generation and marketing was also essential.

Cisco is introducing a dedicated data centre partner programme and individual certifications to drive take-up of its unified computing architecture, reports ARNnet. The initiatives coincide with the release of the vendor's first range of rack-mounted servers.

The new data centre channel solutions programme is aimed at enabling the channel to sell standardised offerings using products from Cisco as well as its data centre alliance partners Microsoft, NetApp, EMC, Red Hat and VMware.

It will sit separately from the vendor's Premier, Silver and Gold go-to market channel programmes.

Its entrance into the switching market and introduction of networking technologies has strengthened Juniper's resolve in the last year, according to ITP.net. Now the vendor is urging partners to latch onto the services opportunities in front of them.

It might not necessarily be a move motivated by the current climate, but with many corporates thinking twice about investing in new infrastructure, Juniper's bid to show partners that it can offer them a compelling services opportunity couldn't be more timely.

The self-styled 'high performance networking' vendor recently made a series of enhancements to its J-Partner Programme, including the release of new specialisations, allowing resellers to make more margin from their ability to 'design, implement and operate'.