In February, Intel announced that it had dotted all the “I”s and crossed all the “T”s of its historic US$7.78 billion McAfee acquisition and for its Canadian chief Ross Allen, it meant full speed ahead on plans to leverage Intel’s technology advantage for channel partners.
First challenge for McAfee‘s Allen was the SMB market in Canada. The subsidiary created a special section inside its McAfee Security Alliance program specifically for partners catering customers of 250 employees or fewer.
Called the SMB Specialization, it features a new deal registration area that cuts down the approval time from 48 hours to just four. Margins have also doubled in this area from 15 per cent to 30 on net new opportunities. The program consists of on-premise and SaaS delivery models along with enablement tools, turnkey marketing programs and other dedicated resources.At its partner conference in October, McAfee shocked the industry by offering 25 per cent margins on its revamped deal registration program. Most deal registration programs offer between 10 to 15 per cent.
It was one of several channel program enhances the security vendor made. They include: The Accredited Channel Engineer program being made available globally; the creation of the McAfee Authorized Support Provider program; the introduction of a Monthly SaaS Specialization program; and a new Managed Services Provider program.
But the caper for McAfee’s year was the unveiling of DeepSafe. According to McAfee, DeepSafe marks the dawning of a new era of security and the channel program needed to adapt and capitalize on this new security technology.
DeepSafe, co-developed with Intel, could be a game changer as it works as a protection layer beyond the operating system. According to Todd Gebhart, the co-president of McAfee, it would have prevented Stuxnet.