Security distributor Computerlinks has fine-tuned its Ipswitch What's Up Gold
training programme, re-purposing each seminar to be delivered over the web. It
argued that this makes the job of empowering resellers with IP skills far easier.

Resellers are busy, time is at a premium, and training needs to be fitted around
their busy schedule, product manager Carly Loveday told CRN.

The strategy is to put everything relating to its partner programme online.
Unlike many online vendors, Computerlinks doesn't claim that going on the net
will create a level playing field. The class system stays in place.

"We have still got the same three levels of partnership," confirmed Loveday, "but
the training we offer [to move resellers up the hierarchy] is less ad hoc. We have
made it a lot more flexible and responsive to people's needs."

Instead of taking sales people and engineers out of action, and putting them in
a classroom for a day, Loveday explained, it is far more affordable, and
profitable, to break the training into easy modules, which can be taken
individually. Each of the four main strands of sales training have now been edited
into a sales module of about 25 minutes.

Reseller Grey Matter, for example, has ten sales staff. "Taking all ten staff off
the road would have affected their profitability," said Loveday.

Computerlinks still intends to make site visits in some cases, however. "We want
people to get trained quicker, and earn their rewards quicker," she said. "As a
distributor, we make money if our partners make money."

Alessandro Porro, director of international sales for Ipswitch, welcomed the
move. "The online training is a great benefit to the specialised channel. It
provides the flexibility for partners to attain a level of expertise without
having to sacrifice extended cycles of time, whilst being in complete alignment
with us. This just shows the added value Computerlinks brings to our channel."