Revamped Sonus Partner Program Causes Channel Gains
Revamped Sonus Partner Program Causes Channel Gains by UCStrategies Staff
Sonus Networks is a SIP infrastructure specialist which is directing more resources towards its still-new, yet fast progressing channel program, and it seems as though its transformation will continue from an exclusively carrier-focused company to mainstay in the enterprise session border controller (SBC) market.
The enhanced Sonus Partner Assure Program was put into place this week, and includes a new, two-tiered structure, and partners will be able to buy Sonus products via distributors such as Westcon, ScanSource and Distribution Central.
Sonus states that the two-tiered structure will equip partners with more pre- and post-sales technical support, and the partner program has been improved with a new online quoting tool, technical support documentation and revamped training materials such as webinars and on-demand course for both sales and technical teams.
The updates follow a year after the introduction of the partner program, and the executive vice president of strategy and go-to-market for Sonus, Todd Abbott, stated that the program, as well as Sonus’ overall channel footprint, has been gradually growing.
Abbott stated that around 17 percent of Sonus’ revenue in Q1 of 2013 is from the channel. The company anticipates that this number will increase to between 20 percent and 25 percent, by the end of this year. Abbott said: “We’re making some good progress.”
Around 300 partners have been on-boarded since the unveiling of the Sonus Partner Assure Program last year. There has also been a 300 percent increase in the Sonus Partner Portal since the launch last year, and around 150 new partner users ask for access each month.
Sonus partners include global system integrators like Dimension Data, as well as traditional networking resellers like the Lexington, Massachusetts-based Integration Partners. Solution providers who are based in the UC world, especially those that resell Microsoft Lync, also make up a key portion of the company’s partner base.
The increase of Sonus’ partner base is due to the fact that the company is one of the few SBC vendors on the market whose technology has been designed to aid a range of UC applications.
Abbott said: “We are now really the only vendor-agnostic SBC player. What I mean by that is that all the UC companies have an SBC -- Avaya does, Cisco does, Siemens does -- but the problem is that those SBCs are designed to enable their UC platforms to operate really well. They don't necessarily enable an enterprise with multiple UC environments, and large enterprises typically have a minimum of two or three.”
The Via Group is a Woodlands, Texas-based Sonus partner, and the director of operations at that company, Michael Cassady, commented on the company’s commitment to the channel, which has grown increasingly in the last few months.
Cassady said: “From our standpoint, they have certainly caught the attention of our CTO in terms of the types of products that they are moving toward and the type of strategy they are developing.” Like other Sonus partners, he entered into Sonus’ channel as a result of the June 2012 acquisition of Network Equipment Technologies (NET).
There are some items, according to Cassady, which he would like to see included in Sonus’ partner program later on; this includes deal registration. Cassady said: “[Sonus] has been very open, honest and communicative on all of this.”
The company’s channel growth highlights the momentum Sonus has seen in the enterprise market in the last year. Although it was previously focused on the service provider or carrier space, Sonus has become more invested in its enterprise footprint, especially as more enterprises adopt SIB to support a varied set of UC applications hosted in the cloud.
Abbott noted: “Our issue has been that our SBCs were designed for tier-one telephone companies, as the backbone infrastructure, but the market is really in the enterprise. As enterprises move to SIP infrastructures, they need these SBCs to be able to deliver security and the call control and the functionality that SIP requires.”
Sonus’ route-to-market in the enterprise will, ultimately, be 100 percent through the channel, according to Abbott. He said: “Our legacy business is large telcos and that will be direct. A lot of our business from tier-two or tier-three service providers is now indirect, and our enterprise business is expected to be 100 percent through the channel.”
Sonus seeks to have its enterprise business account for around half of its total revenue in the next few years. In Q1 of 2013, about 45 percent of Sonus’ revenue came from enterprise sales, such as what Sonus called a “large one-time SBC deployment” in the U.S. federal agency. Apart from the federal deal, the enterprise revenue in Q1 was 15 percent. (CY) Link