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Citrix India is realigning its channel strategies now that market acceptance for desktop virtualization is growing beyond enterprise customers. It plans to upgrade several of its Citrix Solutions Advisors (CSAs) to Citrix Light House Partners (LHPs) over the next few months. The company has also roped in Avnet Technology Solutions as a VAD.
Earlier, in 2009, Citrix had announced plans to double its partner base to target SMBs. The plans did not work. “The market was not mature, and getting partners ready for a major push was not the best move,” explained Sanjay Deshmukh, Area VP, Citrix India. “Hence, in Q12010, we consolidated the partner network to around 12 LHPs and 20-25 CSAs. We focused most of the business on the LHPs, worked hand-in-hand with them, and went after the 500 large enterprises in the country.”
While the CSAs were allowed to quote for and sell Citrix products, the marketing dollars were spent only on LHPs. “Now we want to work closely with our existing CSAs and upgrade most of them to LHPs. The market has grown, and many of the CSAs address customers who are actively thinking about the cloud and virtualization.”
Deshmukh said that while the company would add more CSAs, there is no number target. “Our immediate goal is to ensure that our existing partners upgrade their skill sets and are able to build a profitable practice around Citrix. With the market growing, new partners will join, but we are in no hurry.”
On adding Avnet as a VAD Deshmukh said, “We are very happy with Redington. However, as we empower more CSAs, we need another VAD who can help partners with the entire lifecycle of selling and deploying solutions on top of the Citrix product line.”
He brushed away allegations that Citrix has lost its focus on server virtualization and left the market for VMware to dominate.
“I admit we haven’t been aggressive on server virtualization. We have the best stack of solutions across all virtualization platforms, and with our application acceleration product line we can be the best end-to-end virtualization provider for any customer. This would be our biggest marketing pitch this year.”
source : crn
Earlier, in 2009, Citrix had announced plans to double its partner base to target SMBs. The plans did not work. “The market was not mature, and getting partners ready for a major push was not the best move,” explained Sanjay Deshmukh, Area VP, Citrix India. “Hence, in Q12010, we consolidated the partner network to around 12 LHPs and 20-25 CSAs. We focused most of the business on the LHPs, worked hand-in-hand with them, and went after the 500 large enterprises in the country.”
While the CSAs were allowed to quote for and sell Citrix products, the marketing dollars were spent only on LHPs. “Now we want to work closely with our existing CSAs and upgrade most of them to LHPs. The market has grown, and many of the CSAs address customers who are actively thinking about the cloud and virtualization.”
Deshmukh said that while the company would add more CSAs, there is no number target. “Our immediate goal is to ensure that our existing partners upgrade their skill sets and are able to build a profitable practice around Citrix. With the market growing, new partners will join, but we are in no hurry.”
On adding Avnet as a VAD Deshmukh said, “We are very happy with Redington. However, as we empower more CSAs, we need another VAD who can help partners with the entire lifecycle of selling and deploying solutions on top of the Citrix product line.”
He brushed away allegations that Citrix has lost its focus on server virtualization and left the market for VMware to dominate.
“I admit we haven’t been aggressive on server virtualization. We have the best stack of solutions across all virtualization platforms, and with our application acceleration product line we can be the best end-to-end virtualization provider for any customer. This would be our biggest marketing pitch this year.”
source : crn
