Appsense gives Platinum nod to CC, Kelway and Ultima

Trio to get five per cent extra discount

Enterprise workspace management vendor Appsense has crowned Computacenter, Kelway and Ultima as its first three Platinum partners in the UK and Europe.

The new top-level badge, which was initially introduced in Appsense's native US, will net the trio an additional five per cent discount over and above Gold partners.

Remco Postma, area vice president of SI and channels EMEA at Appsense, said the threesome's ability to navigate both Microsoft-based physical environments and the virtual environments of VMware and Citrix was a crucial factor behind their promotion.

"Customers often face a blended environment and that is where Appsense's software comes into its own," Postma said. "We have picked partners that understand those three environments."

He added: "The four key areas we touch upon are personalisation, policy, privilege and performance. We have put a lot of investment over the last 12 months, particularly based on partner feedback, into improving the quality of product to make it easier to deploy so partners can get a consistent, high-quality experience."

Platinum partners are expected to have three accredited sales and technical staff, respectively, and have drawn up a growth plan with the vendor.

Appsense expects to appoint another five to seven Platinum partners across EMEA as it rolls the badge across the region, starting in Germany.

The vendor – which competes with the likes of RES Software and Liquidware Labs – has been on a staff recruitment drive of late, with Websense UK's managing director, Atif Ahmed, thought to be about to follow his former Websense colleague Zoe Clark to the vendor in a top-level position.

The vendor has also recently created an internal sales development team to pass leads to partners for sub-2,500-seat deals.

"From a channel point of view we have made a significant investment," Postma said.