Panda Security Expands Channel Partner Benefits

PRESS RELEASE

GLENDALE, Calif., Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today reinforced its commitment to the channel with significant enhancements to the company's partner program. Panda's new and improved channel program offers the industry's most comprehensive range of protection, rewards, training and promotions for value-added resellers (VARs) and managed-service providers, along with market-leading cloud security and security-as-a service (SaaS) products. Expansions include enhanced deal and incumbent protection, dedicated training and marketing support, discounts and rewards along with specialized programs for VARs focused on the small- and medium-size business (SMB) market.

"In the IT security business, you need to protect and care for your partners as you do your customers. Our cutting-edge SaaS functionality and Collective Intelligence cloud security keeps customer IT infrastructures safe, while our channel partner program is focused on safeguarding and nurturing their investments in Panda," said Ruben Garcia, director of channels for the U.S., Panda Security. "After carefully listening to our partners, we've evolved our program to be the industry's most encompassing and rewarding reseller program to ensure partner deals are protected, sales and renewal opportunities abound, and premium training and support programs surpass expectations."

"Panda's commitment to the channel, complemented by a dedicated two-tier partner relationship is a win-win for everyone, especially the end-user," said Dr. Hugo Uyttenhove, CEO of IT-Sentry, Inc. "With the mechanisms of incumbency protection and aggressive deal closing in place, IT-Sentry will be able to spend more time on increasing the loyalty to the brand. Panda's channel program sets us on a path to solid growth in the protection business and in the constant improvement in the protection of our customers."

Panda's new channel partner program includes the following enhancements and benefits:

-- Enhanced Deal Registration: To prevent deal piracy and ensure all partners are rewarded for developing deals, partners registering a "new to Panda" deal receive an additional 10 percent margin as a closing incentive. Should a competing reseller close another reseller's registered deal, the registering reseller still receives a 10 percent net-to-Panda to cover the loss. -- Incumbent Protection: To protect incumbent partners on their renewals, Panda will give an additional 15 percent margin off MSRP for a total of 30 percent. Incumbent protection will enable VARs to retain rich margins on renewal contracts for deals they initiated for Panda. -- Channel Empowerment: By equipping all partners, regardless of size or level, with technical training, localized marketing assistance, and assigned Panda support managers, resellers benefit from detailed product knowledge, customized sales materials and personalized support to secure and finalize sales opportunities more effectively. -- Lucrative Promotions, Rewards and Discounts: To reward high sales efforts and successes, various sales promotion incentive funds (SPIF) have been set-up such as the Dollar-A-Node promotion on software sales or the 100 Buck per Hardware appliance for sales of Panda's GateDefender product line. -- Business-in-a-Box Program: For SMB-focused VARs, a special program is available to educate and empower resellers to create new revenue streams during challenging economic periods by providing managed security services with Panda Managed Office Protection. Panda provides the complete business model so that partners can immediately create higher margins and improve customer loyalty with higher quality of service and ease of management.

In addition, a new partner program structure was designed to enable all partners to take part in the program at the premier level with no minimum requirements for the first three quarters. All partners will benefit from 30 percent margins and have up to three quarters to meet premier level sales requirements and technical certification prerequisites. Peak performing VARs can participate in the program at an elite level, which grants them an extended line of credit and higher margins to reflect the added commitment to act as a distributor for other lower level partners.

To learn more about Panda's partner program, please visit http://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/partners.

About Panda Security

Founded in 1990, Panda Security is the world's leading provider of cloud-based security solutions with products available in more than 23 languages and millions of users located in 195 countries around the world. Panda Security was the first IT security company to harness the power of cloud computing with its Collective Intelligence technology. This innovative security model can automatically analyze and classify thousands of new malware samples per day, guaranteeing corporate customers and home users the most effective protection against Internet threats with minimum impact on PC performance. Panda Security has 56 offices throughout the globe with U.S. headquarters in California and European headquarters in Spain. For more information, log on to http://www.pandasecurity.com/.