Certeon takes indirect sales route

Course change: Karl Soderlund plans to invert Certeon's current sales model towards the channel

WAN optimisation player Certeon claims its software architecture will give UK VARs access to customers that hardware vendors cannot reach.

Karl Soderlund joined the Massachusetts-based firm as senior vice president of worldwide sales earlier this year. He claimed the vendor conducted 80 per cent of business directly, with just 20 per cent going through the channel.

Soderlund aims to invert those numbers within six months, backed by the launch of Certeon’s first channel programme.

The programme will contain Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers and VARs can benefit from a “very aggressive” deal registration programme and margins of at least 15 per cent.

The vendorlite office in west London and CDG UK is signed up as a distribution partner.

Soderlund revealed resellers with WAN optimisation or networking know-how would make ideal recruits, as would those with virtualisation or business continuity practices.

“It is about partners that will invest in us from a training standpoint,” he added.
After surging past the $1bn (£646,000) mark in 2008, the WAN optimisation market stuttered a little last year. Analysts report that Blue Coat, Riverbed and Cisco continue to play musical chairs at the top of the vendor tree.

But Soderlund claimed his firm is making aggressive market share gains. He added that a software-based product would allow partners to penetrate some of mid-market accounts inaccessible to hardware vendors.

Daniel Power, sales director at CDG UK, said: “For resellers, the proof-of-concept [for hardware] requires the moving of large amounts of tin around the world. For a virtual solution, this phase can be run simply and remotely.”

Power added that Certeon kit is already attracting reseller interest, particularly in the Microsoft SharePoint space.

“Certeon solutions address some real issues people have with some quite mainstream applications,” he said.