WatchGuard signs on seven new resellers in Australia

Recently WatchGuard in Australia signed on Emcorp IT Pty Ltd; AKCS; Aztech Networks Pty Ltd; Inspire IT; OPC IT Pty Limited ; Technologies 2000 Pty Ltd; and Terra Electronics. In New Zealand, the vendor has added Kalooma Ltd and Solarix onto its reseller list.

The sign-ups have been part of WatchGuards aggressive build-up of its partner business, for the past six months. According to Scott Robertson, regional director Australia/New Zealand, in the first half of 2007 resellers contributed only a third of the business, now its Australian partners contribute 50 percent to its revenue growth.

“We want our long and loyal customers to take part in our rebate programs. We have also added a third layer to that program, dubbed the Associate level. This will educate resellers and mature them to either the Professional Level or to the top at the Expert Level,” said Robertson.

In Australia, WatchGuard has 30 resellers in the top level of its channel program and around 200 resellers at any quarter selling WatchGuard products.

“There’s a need to balance more partner growth with ensuring there’s enough healthy competition for them to compete in the marketplace,” he said. “While we want to grow our list we are also looking at our existing list to try and migrate these resellers into our partner program.”

According to Terry Haass vice president of International Sales WatchGuard has around 15000 resellers through Europe, USA and Asia.

“We have got resellers ranging from two person consultants to large system integrators. We find that the larger the customer, the more up along the partner scale they go,” he said.

In January2008, WatchGuard reported year-over-year revenue growth of 17 percent for Quarter four of 2007.