Serena seeks resellers to ramp up channel

Serena Software has refocused on indirect sales through the channel and seeks Australia and New Zealand-based resellers for its change management software.

Charles Rignall, new country manager for Serena Software, said the vendor was moving away from its direct focus to concentrate more on the channel following last year's acquisition of Merant.

"Merant had principally a direct model here," Rignall said. "But we want to build up our partners."

He said Serena sought six VARs, resellers and distributors across Australia and New Zealand by the end of the year. ISVs could also be suitable.

"For those ISVs that see the need to build this type of capacity in their products, yes," he said.

The company wanted to triple its turnover in the next three years, Rignall said.

Serena had worked with Australia-based Ubiquity for around 15 years and that relationship would continue, Rignall said.

The vendor sought consultancies in Australia and NZ to build IT change management practices, particularly in Federal Government.

"We span the application lifecycle management and change management space," Rignall said.

Partner sales represented an overlooked opportunity for Serena, he added.

Serena had just released its Professional 9 software for process and version management for team application development in distributed environments, Rignall said.

He said the US-listed vendor was solid financially, boasting 16 consecutive quarters of growth. Serena wanted to pull its Australasian numbers up to its global ranking.

"In our product space, we're number two behind IBM Rational in terms of revenue, globally," Rignall said. "But we're somewhere between number three and four in Australia and New Zealand."

However, the company was in a reporting blackout period and wouldn't divulge latest sales or profit figures, he said.

"Australian sales have gone very well for the last few years, but I'm on a very aggressive growth plan for the region over the next few years," Rignall said.

Serena Software's Australian office is in Melbourne. Maintenance and support for all Serena's Asia-Pacific region customers was also based in Melbourne, Rignall said.