Foundry Alliance Embraces Multi-Vendor Networks

The Foundry Networks IronPowered Technology Alliance Program gives multi-tiered vendor partners the benefits of co-marketing, co-operative sales opportunities and integrated solutions, the vendor said. The goal is to support the needs of a wider range of customers and deliver best-in-class network and application integration solutions with other leading vendors in the industry, including vendors such as Microsoft, Mitel, Oracle, SAP and Symantec.

The program gives joint customers a more simplified integrated networking and application solution, co-market and branding benefits, qualified lead generation, joint solutions sales opportunities, complimentary solutions with proven interoperability and technology training and support.

The alliance is designed to enable partners to offer full end-to-end solutions based on Foundry's routing and switching gear, especially in infrastructure environments that use networking gear from several different vendors. The program brings together best-in-breed solutions and ensures customers that those solutions have been tested and certified to ensure they interoperate. The goal is to reduce network administrative confusion and ongoing maintenance, while also creating end-to-end solutions that fall in line with customer needs.

The IronPowered Program is chopped into three levels. Those tiers guide the partners' requirements for participation and the benefits they will receive as part of the alliance. Partners can gain increasing membership benefits as they progress and business objectives are attained.

To become a Global Alliance partner, the relationship between Foundry and that partner must be global in nature and cover multiple functional groups or organizations between the two companies. Strategic Alliance members must have significant market presence and a track record of success with foundry. Premier Alliance members are new Foundry partners or have a deliberate reason for working with Foundry. Premier partners must fill a technology gap or bring value to Foundry services or solutions.

Lastly, Foundry added the Interoperable Solutions tier, while these companies do not meet the Premier Alliance level requirements, they have completed interoperability testing for their solutions and have products that fill a technology gap.

In a statement, Foundry vice president of corporate marketing and business development, Benjamin Taft said the program was designed to promote the advantages of a multi-vendor network infrastructure needed to support today's evolving operations needs and to help drive the network rather than let the network dictate business strategy.

"The network is the enabler and critical ingredient for today's organizations; it facilitates greater efficiencies, generates competitive advantages, and promotes extraordinary gains in productivity and innovation," he said.