OIL & GAS

Business Incentives and Technical Superiority Motivate Surge in Reseller Partnerships -- Computer Associates International, Inc. today announced that nearly 3,000 new resellers and solution providers have initiated business relationships with CA in the first six months of the company's new North American channel partner program. This surge in channel partnerships is the largest in CA's history. Solution partners, including Akcelerant Infrastructure Solutions LLC, CompuCom Systems, Inc., DataTech Enterprises, Inc., DefenderSoft, Inc., SHI, Software Medium, and Toss Corporation in the United States and Software Spectrum in Canada have praised the new no-fee Partner for Profitability program, which features improved lead generation, an aggressive rebate program, enhanced free technical support, and expanded training and certification. New partners, such as EduTech Computer Services, Inc., Horizon Data Corp. and pleasantbay.NET in the United States and Synergy Plus Solutions, Inc. in Canada are also being attracted by the quality, innovation and value of CA's eTrust (security management), AllFusion (life cycle management) and BrightStor (storage management) solutions, including today's release of BrightStor ARCserve Backup for Windows r11. "CA is offering the channel an incredibly compelling value proposition," said Bob Schuster, president, Networks of Florida, a leading technology solutions provider in Pensacola, Fla. "CA's solutions enable us to effectively address our customers' most pressing IT challenges, while allowing us to significantly boost our bottom-line performance." As part of its enhanced channel program, CA's 300-person customer interaction center in Tampa has delivered more than 46,000 highly qualified, quoted and configured sales opportunities to partners over the last six months. Partners get real-time access to these opportunities through a streamlined, web-based distribution system. During this same period, more than 1,400 partners have taken advantage of CA's free sales certification and technical training courses on eTrust, AllFusion, and BrightStor solutions. CA also recently introduced the CA Protection Suite, a specially priced bundle of BrightStor ARCserve Backup and eTrust Antivirus technologies that enables CA channel partners to address customers' growing need for secure networked storage systems. "CA is providing the services we need to optimize the effectiveness of our staff and consistently out-sell the competition," said Chris Horvath, president, True Data Storage Networks, Inc., a storage consultancy in New York City. "They have clearly made a commitment to the channel that surpasses what we have seen from other technology vendors." A recent study of more than 6,800 solution providers by VARBusiness magazine revealed that the top criteria for selection of vendor partners is exactly the same as those emphasized by CA: product quality and reliability, quality of technical support, product compatibility and ease of integration, and ease of doing business with the vendor. "CA's Partner for Profitability program provides the channel with world- class support and training, in addition to qualified opportunities, free of charge," said George Kafkarkou, senior vice president, worldwide channel operations for CA. "The program's additional partner rebate incentives of up to 15 percent -- combined with the fact that storage, security and modeling all contribute to this rebate -- have resulted in the significant growth of the number of channel partners doing business with us."