Fortinet brings deal registration to the masses

Network security vendor shows the love for smaller resellers by extending scheme to Bronze partners

Fortinet is opening up deal registration to its entire UK reseller base as it encourages smaller partners to skill up on its newer technologies.

The network security vendor was late to the deal registration party, having only launched its first formal scheme last August. At the time it was made available only to its top-level Gold and Silver partners.

From today, the programme is being extended to its 300 or so Bronze and Bronze Plus partners as Fortinet seeks to throw its weight behind those investing in its WiFi, database security and DDoS prevention wares.

Fortinet's scheme is an unorthodox one, with partners netting no extra automatic discount for registering a deal, a policy that Fortinet channel sales manager Chris Walsh said is paying off for the vendor as it has not been subject to the abuse that characterises more traditional schemes.

"Those that have used our deal registration have had a genuine reason for doing so," said Walsh (pictured, below). "We have had a low amount of deal registered but our conversion rate is well in excess of 75 per cent.

"Now we want to replicate that into some of our smaller deals."

Walsh said Fortinet has demoted 40 per cent of its top-tier Gold and Silver partners this year, with some major names being shown the door due to concerns they were only farming legacy deals and not generating new sales.

"We want to make sure partners are working with us to bring us incremental business," he said.

At the same time, Fortinet's Bronze and Bronze Plus partner base has grown 10 per cent in 2013.

New certifications that will enable these lower-level partners to earn the same discount as their Gold counterparts on certain specialist technologies will be launched next year, Walsh said, pinpointing DDoS mitigation, database security and WiFi as three examples.

"We have never really gone in as a pure play in WiFi against the likes of Aruba," Walsh said. "But we are the third biggest network security vendor, with 20,000 boxes in the UK. They will all have WiFi somewhere in their environment - why wouldn't they want to use the same gateway security on their WiFi?"