Watchguard begins partner recruitment drive

Scott Robertson, regional director A/NZ at WatchGuard Technologies, told CRN that after moving from a publically listed to a private company in September 2006, Watchguard has focussed on product development and reducing its product release cycle.

“We’ve shortened our release cycle so that we’re releasing technology far more quickly and trying to adapt to market needs and channel needs much more quickly,” he said.

Watchguard's CEO, Joe Wang, said the move to privatise the company was partly driven by issues around the company's relationships with its channel partners.

"Before the company went private, there were quite a few management challenges that actually made doing business with Watchguard somewhat difficult," he said.

"As a result, certain channel partners decided not to heavily promote the Watchguard relationship.

"Now we have proven in the last 15 months that we're back as a good partner and we're here to support them to grow their business," he said.

Wang added that the company will contine as a channel business with no plans to move to direct sales in the future.

The next 12 months will involve Watchguard working more closely with its existing channel partners, while also making a strong drive to sign new partners to drive the growth of the company in Australia, he said.

"Our way of growing our business is through the growth of our channel partners which is very important to us," he said.

Earlier this year, Watchguard introduced a 3 tier channel partner program that has seen the company build a network of over 40 partners in Australia.

Roberston said that Watchguard has doubled revenue for its channel partners in past 12 months.

Partners gain access to marketing tools including an online portal, co-branding opportunities, instructional videos and dual marketing campaigns.

Watchguard is also pushing what it has called extensible threat management. The vendor claims its XTM appliances will extend the functionality of unified threat management to be able to adapt to new threats and changing network environments.