Panacea scores Gold status with Symantec
Resellers secures highest level partner status with vendor
VAR Panacea has been awarded Gold Partner status from security and storage giant Symantec, and now hopes to provide more email archiving and recovery to its customer base.
The accreditation will enable the reseller, which recently completed a management buy out (CRN, 22 May), to strengthen its Windows backup and archiving storage capabilities.
The VAR is also a Platinum Partner for Business Objects, a Premier Partner for IBM, a Gold Partner for Microsoft and an Enterprise Partner with Sage.
Barry Wakelin, business development director at Panacea, said the firm had intended to ramp up its presence in the email management and archiving market for some time, with Symantec offering the most suitable portfolio for Panacea’s customer base.
“We set about creating a Symantec team with four technical staff and four sales staff, who then sat the exams to prove their skill with the Symantec application,” he said. “The accreditation provides us with a differentiator. We also get increased access to senior people at Symantec.”
Wakelin said it has taken time to get customers to invest in email management, but the partnership will enable the VAR to provide such applications.
“We try to limit the number of vendors we work with, but if we take on any other strategic partners we will also aim for their highest accreditation,” Wakelin added.
Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at Quocirca, said: “These accreditations show channel partners have achieved a certain standard and its employees have the required skill level.
“High-level accreditations are helpful in the end-user community when the programmes are fully understood. Vendors need to not only push partners through the programme, but raise awareness of the programmes with end-users.”
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