Symantec is to launch a partner incentive initiative aimed at helping end users make better use of their storage infrastructure capacity.

The scheme will see the vendor rewarding partners with special certification and extra margins for using its products to achieve datacentre efficiency savings.

Due for roll out in April, it will be open to partners who can demonstrate a “capability in storage optimisation”.

Darren Thomson, senior technical director of datacentre management at Symantec, said: “This is a channel-critical project because it means we can scale out capability and take on many more projects than we could on our own.”

As well as extra margin, the vendor will also offer partners the chance to “buddy up” with members of its pre-sales team to help develop their technical expertise.

“It means we can get closer to our partners and help them learn new skills in a more effective way than a training course,” added Thomson.

The initiative is part of the firm’s partner-mediated Stop Buying Storage campaign, which aims to help end users reduce their datacentre hardware requirements.

Thomson said: “Before IT budgets were squeezed by the recession, there was a tendency for end users to over-buy storage because it was better to have too much than too little.

“This has resulted in many datacentres being over-utilised, causing huge amounts of wastage.”

Shaune Parsons, managing director at Symantec Silver partner ComputerWorld Wales, said the incentives on offer by Symantec should prove popular with the firm’s channel partners.

He said: “Anything a manufacturer can do to help resellers make money in this climate is good, and the ‘learning on the job’ [aspect] should provide a better, all-round training experience in a live environment.”