Citrix lures channel with training and SMB focus

Vendor giant trials second phase of its Elite training academy while continuing effort with SMBs

Vendor Citrix is hoping to further entice SMBs to its partner programme at the same time as it announces the second phase of its Elite partner status.

The cloud, virtualisation and networking specialist, which launched the Elite training programme in 2010, has 1,000 members enlisted, all of whom it hopes will want to sign up to the second phase of its training academy.

Kevin Bland, director for channel and partner sales for the UK, Ireland and South Africa, said his fears that the market would be saturated were proved wrong.

"We are not at the saturation point yet; we still have a huge range of people who want to get on [the programme] and we are still booking out training after training," he added.

"With the second stage of Elite, we want to go back and add additional value to those who were initially involved. We are trialling it now, and after feedback and some tweaks, we will come back with a bang."

The current training is delivered by a third party, which the vendor claims makes the delivery more impartial. However, Bland added that as the training academy advances, more product messaging will be included.

The move comes as the virtualisation firm looks to further entice SMB partners onto its Citrix Solution Advisor SMB Programme, which was launched in March.

The vendor is currently working on its strategy to target end users with user base groups of between 0 and 100, 100 and 250 and 250 and 1,000.

Bland claimed SMB customers offer the channel new opportunities.

"Most [SMB] organisations do not have their own IT services, so that is something they will look to outsource to the channel. To those who have a cloud proposition, and who can rent a desktop from us – this is where we see the most traction in the SMB market," he said.