Altiris seeks to broaden its partner skills base

Vendor begins channel offensive, following closure of $830m Symantec acquisition

Lifecycle management vendor Altiris is tapping up new parent Symantec’s channel as part of its drive to recruit partners with skills in security and availability.
The offensive comes after Altiris unveiled a roadmap for its first converged product set, five months after the $830m acquisition.
Rene van Putten, area director of EMEA channel at Altiris, said his top priority was to widen the vendor’s channel skills base beyond just lifecycle management.
“We are trying to focus on increasing the channel overlap and getting partners on our books that can provide a complete portfolio of security, availability and lifecycle management solutions,” he said.
“Security and lifecycle management are becoming more inter-dependent, which was the reason for the acquisition. And in the channel, the market demand is also moving towards offering a total solution.”
Altiris has 10 Gold-level VARs in the UK, including Vistorm and Basilica, which van Putten listed
as examples of partners able to cover all three areas.
Van Putten added that Altiris is now working with Symantec’s regional teams to identify suitable resellers to bring on board.
Lower-level Silver and non-status resellers must buy through sole distributor Codework, which Gold partners can also use for support.
Codework is aiming to quickly tap into the huge opportunity offered by Symantec’s several thousand-strong reseller network.
Divyesh Lakhani, sales manager at Codework, said: “We have expanded our Altiris team to 10 people
and are currently in VAR recruitment mode.”
Lakhani added it had been tough to gain traction with the Symantec channel before this month because the vendor had only just begun rewarding its account managers for selling Altiris.
Symantec buys Altiris