Symantec Expands Hosted Services Program

Symantec is expanding its Hosted Services Partner Program with opportunities for partners to offer consulting and referrals, as well as deliver hosted and managed security services.

The revamped Symantec Hosted Services, the program formerly belonging to MessageLabs, offers varying levels of participation, with a premium associate program, an authorized reseller program and a hosted applications provider program.

Executives say that Symantec's new hosted services channel program lineup has something for partners at all levels of the services spectrum.

Partners who want to develop a continuous referral business can earn recurring revenue on new contracts, upgrades and renewals and can enter at the Premium Associate Program, which offers 15 percent commission on new business upgrades and renewals. Meanwhile, partners wanting to provide consulting or occasional referrals around Symantec's hosted services business can also earn 15 percent commission on new contracts and upgrades in the standard Associate Program.

The next tier, the Authorized Reseller Program, acts as an entry-level reseller program with a low barrier to entry and minimal requirements for partners wanting to further get their feet wet with hosted services. The program provides 20 percent margin, but partners can take the option of passing all ongoing customer support to Symantec Hosted Services, executives said.

The program's top tier, the Hosted Applications Provider Program, allows channel partners to actually deliver hosted services. The program is billed as an exclusive-access OEM program that allows partners to incorporate Symantec cloud-based services into hosted applications, essentially enabling them to take Symantec Hosted Services to market.

Currently, channel partners can provide hosted services for an array of security functions, including messaging security, e-mail and Web filtering, archiving and encryption. And down the road, Symantec executives said that they planned to add other security services such as DLP and endpoint security.

The Symantec Hosted Services Program is available to all Symantec channel partners with a viable hosted services model, depending on their various expertise and desired involvement. Helen Cendrowski, Symantec director of channels for the Americas for Hosted Services, said that training would be provided at no cost to partners who wanted to join the programs, along with access to demos.

Next: Partners Want To Participate In Services

Executives say that the move to expand its hosted program was made response to increased demand from partners who wanted to become more enabled in all aspects of the company's services division.

"It's really based on partner demand," Cendrowski said. "Obviously now we're aligning ourselves with the Symantec channel. They have a significant number of partners."

The hosted services expansion aligns with stated goals from CEO Enrique Salem last week during Symantec's 2010 Vision Conference. Among other things, Salem said that the company had plans to expand its hosted services, eventually growing that division from about 5 percent to about 15 percent of the entire business.

Up until recently, Symantec Hosted Services acted almost as its own entity, separate and apart from the main Symantec channel program. Salem said he hoped channel partners would become more enabled to take the company's hosted services to market down the road as the two programs became more integrated.

Cendrowski said that Symantec wanted to add more partners to its hosted services programs but didn't have a target quota or cap in mind.

"SaaS is a major trend right now. It's allowing partners to go back to existing customers to sell additional products," Cendrowski said. "It's opening up a whole new way to do business for them.'