2022 Partner Program Guide: 5-Star Networking And Unified Communications Vendor Programs
As part of the Partner Program Guide, CRN designates some vendor channel programs as 5-Star Programs. Here are the 5-Star programs among networking and unified communications vendors for 2022.
Making A Connection With Partners
The 2022 Partner Program Guide offers the information solution providers need to evaluate the channel programs operated by the IT vendors they work with or are considering partnering with. The guide is based on detailed applications submitted by vendors – just over 300 this year – outlining all aspects of their partner programs.
As part of the Partner Program Guide, CRN designates some programs as 5-Star Partner Programs because they provide the most comprehensive lineups of incentives, training, services and benefits.
Here we provide snapshots of the 5-Star designees in the networking and unified communications space. Details of every vendor’s partner program can be found here.
Other slide shows in the 5-Star Partner Program Guide series running this week will include companies that provide products and services in software and applications, systems and data center, security, cloud platforms and infrastructure, devices and peripherals, and data storage and backup. While many companies provide products and services that span multiple technologies, we’ve assigned each vendor to the slide show for the technology category in which they are most prominent.
8x8
Program Name: 8x8 Open Channel Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2019
Channel Chief: Lisa Del Real, Global Channel Chief
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: 8x8 is expanding program benefits and resources to help partners grow and retain revenue. In addition, the company will continue to innovate its XCaaS platform, expand its enterprise base and increase global scale following the acquisition of Fuze.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=2
Aruba Networks, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Program Name: Partner Ready For Aruba
Year Program Established: 2016
Channel Chief: Donna Grothjan, VP, Worldwide Channels
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Aruba plans to increase rewards for partners who demonstrate specific capabilities. It also aims to drive business growth with Aruba SD-WAN solutions leveraging Silver Peak value and evolve the partner ecosystem with a focus on services partners.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=22
Aryaka Networks
Program Name: Aryaka Accelerate Program
Year Program Established: 2021
Channel Chief: Craig Patterson, Channel Chief & VP of Sales Americas
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Aryaka wants to double its partner base in 2022. With its new managed SD-WAN and SASE offerings the addressable market will expand and this, coupled with the Accelerate program, should be very attractive to partners.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=23
Avaya
Program Name: Avaya Edge
Year Program Established: 2016
Channel Chief: Dennis Kozak, SVP, Global Channel Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: The 2022 Avaya Edge partner program supports three key components: migrations to subscription and cloud, paying more for new customers, and simplifying program terms.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=29
BlackBerry
Program Name: BlackBerry Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2016
Channel Chief: Colleen McMillan, VP, Global Channel Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: BlackBerry is committed to mutual success with partners. It is focused on providing enhanced opportunities for partners to grow their profitability through expanded training, offerings, competencies and incentives.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=40
Ciena
Program Name: Ciena Partner Network Program
Year Program Established: 2018
Channel Chief: Matt Cook, VP, Global Partners
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: At Ciena, more certifications and training to support partner enablement is coming as is an NFR program to enhance partners’ go-to-marker. It also is expanding partner event activities as more in-person meetings take place.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=50
Cisco Systems
Program Name: The Cisco Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2020
Channel Chief: Oliver Tuszik, SVP, Global Partner Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Cisco’s priorities are to evolve the Cisco Partner Program to align specializations to the value partners deliver, focus on customer life-cycle practices, and maximize partner value through differentiation, transformation and value exchange.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=51
Citrix Systems
Program Name: Citrix Partner Success
Year Program Established: 1989
Channel Chief: Mark Palomba, SVP, Partner Sales & Ecosystems
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Citrix is simplifying its partner experience. The company will offer a success cloud renewal rebate and update the cloud adoption rebate incentive. It also will increase transaction flexibility when leveraging marketplaces and hyperscalers.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=52
Comcast Business
Program Name: Comcast Business Solutions Provider Program
Year Program Established: 2011
Channel Chief: Craig Schlagbaum, SVP and Channel Chief
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: The Comcast Business Solutions Provider Program team has one goal: to help partners sell. The company helps partners sell the right set of solutions to their customers of every size and in every industry.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=60
CommScope
Program Name: PartnerPRO Network
Year Program Established: 2012
Channel Chief: Karen Pugliese, Partner Leader, Americas
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Commscope plans to improve the ease of doing business with the company and better reward those partners that demonstrate a higher degree of technical competency.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=61
Cradlepoint
Program Name: Cradlepoint Global Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2008
Channel Chief: Eric Purcell, SVP, Partner and Alliance Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Cradlepoint will be providing a more comprehensive program for MSPs and technology alliances. This allows these partners to appropriately position the company’s offerings and a supporting infrastructure.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=68
Extreme Networks
Program Name: Extreme Partner Program
Year Program Established: 1996
Channel Chief: Joe Vitalone, Chief Revenue Officer
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Extreme will focus on migrating partners to cloud solutions, improving partners’ technical skills, increasing the number of net-new accounts coming via the partner network, and enhancing the partner experience with new tools and training.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=100
Geoverse
Program Name: Geoverse Partner Program 2.0
Year Program Established: 2020
Channel Chief: Bob Gault, Chief Commercial Officer
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Geoverse is focusing on identifying, selecting, training and equipping Elite-level partners for post-sale support, including RF design, site surveys and deployments.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=108
Gigamon
Program Name: Catalyst Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2013
Channel Chief: Larissa Crandall, VP, Worldwide Channel & Alliances
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Gigamon is continuing to provide access to demand generation resources and investment for partners. The company saw success with partners utilizing content to drive strong ROI with the tools and content provided, and that will be a big focus in 2022.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=109
Infiot
Program Name: Infiot Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2020
Channel Chief: Parag Thakore, CEO
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Infiniot invests in its partners’ success and wants them to leverage its offerings and available resources effectively. The goal is for partners to increase the amount of deployment and services that go through them.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=128
Infoblox
Program Name: BuildingBLOX Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2017
Channel Chief: Chris Millerick, VP, Channels & Alliances
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Infoblox is evolving the BuildingBlox partner program’s pricing and incentives accordingly with an eye on maximizing partners’ profitability. Partners can look forward to simplification and revised incentives with cybersecurity as the cornerstone.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=129
Intermedia Cloud Communications
Program Name: Intermedia Partner Accelerate
Year Program Established: 2006
Channel Chief: Jonathan McCormick, COO and Head of Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Intermedia Partner Accelerate offers two partner models to choose from: the Customer Ownership Reseller model (CORE) allows partners to set their own price points and brand Intermedia‘s solutions as their own; the Advisor program delivers attractive, recurring commissions and both midels come with Intermedia’s 360 partner support.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=137
Juniper Networks
Program Name: Juniper Partner Advantage
Year Program Established: 1996
Channel Chief: Gordon Mackintosh, VP, Global Channels & Virtual Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Continued investments in Juniper’s partner program for 2022 will accelerate strong partnerships and continue the company and its partners on the path of hypergrowth.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=141
Lumen Technologies
Program Name: Lumen Channel Partner Program
Year Program Established: 1998
Channel Chief: Dave Young, SVP, Strategic Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Lumen built a reinvigorated indirect organization with a dual focus on driving sales with partners and channel management. It also created a growth team with dedicated resources focused on improvements to grow the indirect business.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=159
Mitel
Program Name: Mitel Global Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2018
Channel Chief: Daren Finney, SVP, Global Channels
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Mitel’s 2022 goals include incorporating customer experience and customer life-cycle management into the program framework and providing partners with the recognition and tools to enable them to expand their business.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=165
Nextiva
Program Name: NeXus Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2020
Channel Chief: Marc Stein, Global VP, Channel Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Nextiva is dedicated to helping partners understand their customers, service them effectively and ensure their loyalty by supporting their needs through increased marketing programs, field sales participation and service.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=176
Poly
Program Name: Poly Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2020
Channel Chief: Nick Tidd, VP, Global Partner Organization
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: 2022 will bring even more enhancements from Poly’s investment in tools and systems, including new dashboards for tracking and forecasting rebates, as well as viewing overall partner profitability across all of front- and back-end programs.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=200
Ribbon
Program Name: Ribbon Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2019
Channel Chief: David Hogan, VP, Growth Segments
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Ribbon plans to focus on top-tier partners for co-marketing and increased self-service for lower-tier partners through its partner portal.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=212
RingCentral
Program Name: RingCentral Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2010
Channel Chief: Zane Long, SVP, Global Partner Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: RingCentral’ s goal is to put the emphasis on people, setting its sights on continuing to build strong relationships with partners. This means focusing on the people behind partnerships and working to uphold partners’ reputations in their communities.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=213
Riverbed/Aternity
Program Name: Riverbed Rise
Year Program Established: 2018
Channel Chief: Lindsey Claypool, Sr. Director, Channel Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Riverbed/Aternity aims to motivate partners through rewards for building practices around its offerings. The company also is working to ensure top-tier partners are enabled on its advanced visibility offerings.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=214
Sangoma
Program Name: Sangoma Partner Program
Year Program Established: 1984
Channel Chief: Joel Poythress, SVP, Strategic & Enterprise Sales
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Sangoma is aiming to further streamline partner experiences and grow their business with more dedicated engagement from its teams.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=220
Spectrum
Program Name: Spectrum Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2008
Channel Chief: Michelle Kadlacek, VP, Enterprise Partner Program
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: The goals for the Spectrum Partner Program are simple: To continue automation efforts, further enhance the partner experience and mutually grow business. It will continue enhancing Salesforce communities and launch new APIs.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=249
Verizon
Program Name: Verizon Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2013
Channel Chief: Wendy Taccetta, SVP for Nationwide Small Business & Channel Chief
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Verizon’s new partner portal simplifies how partners engage with the company. Following the portal launch, there have been 17 additional capabilities, increased automation and enhancements to improve the partner experience.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=282
Versa Networks
Program Name: Versa ACE Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2017
Channel Chief: Hemen Mehta, VP, North America Channels
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Versa Networks plans tighter alignment with strategic alliances and channels. It also aims to improve sales tools that will enable partners to manage and grow their business.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=283
Vonage
Program Name: Vonage Channel Partner Program
Year Program Established: 2018
Channel Chief: Jim Regan, Channel Chief
Partner Program Goals And Insights For 2022: Vonage aims to increase the overall percentage of company revenue that comes through the channel, improve partner profitability and ramp up partner sales of a newly launched product and service.
Partner Program Details: /partner-program-guide/ppg2022-details.htm?c=290