Trend Micro targets new customers with strong partner rebates

Trend Micro has tailored its 2011 Affinity partner program to reflect its plan to target new customers, the vendor told CRN this week. 

The web security vendor said it had grown its internal channel headcount and enhanced its rebate structure to support partners in signing new customers.   

Trend Micro Australia and New Zealand managing director Dave Patnaik told CRN that the vendor wanted to create a “win, win relationship” with partners for customers.

“We’ve got so many new wonderful products including virtualised products we believe we’re the clear number one in the marketplace in securing the virtualised space.

“This is a perfect opportunity for us to go to new customers who haven’t really tested Trend Micro’s products before. But getting new customers on board requires a lot of partner support,” he said.

That support included an internal “business development engine” at Trend, a combination of face-to-face sales teams, inside sales, partner managers and marketing resources. And investment in backend systems so “rebates were on time".

“We wanted to make sure that the backend process were in place,” Patnaik said.

Trend has also included financial support in the form of deal registration and discounts for resellers and the sales staff responsible for introducing Trend to a new customer:

• All resellers that register an opportunity were eligible to receive a discount of up to 20 percent from the distributor list price. AffinityONE resellers were eligible for a 20 percent discount, where all others get 10 percent. 
• Top tiered partners could claim a rebate of 3 percent if they renew a customer for the second year in a row. 
• Available to the top two reseller tiers, a partner that registered a deal could claim a rebate of up to10 percent of the value even if the deal was fulfilled by another reseller. 
• Trend Micro planned to provide sales representatives who introduced customers with no prior business with the vendor up to $200 in vouchers.

“The changes were based on feedback we got from customers and partners,” Patnaik told CRN.

“Partners should be able to really understand and work closely with their partners for the requirement of their customers.

“If you combine all that there is a massive number of dollars and people."

Last August, Trend Micro released the Mware vShield Endpoint which claimed to strengthen security for virtual machines and their hosts.

By integrating VMware vShield Endpoint APIs, Trend Micro could create anti-malware protection for VMs without requiring a third-party agent to be installed on each VM, thereby reducing memory and CPU load.