Trend Micro intros Affinity Partner Program

Mumbai : Trend Micro has introduced Affinity Partner Program in order
to foster profitable relationships with channel partners in the Asia Pacific
region. At the launch of the program, Amit Nath, Country Manager?India and SAARC,
Trend Micro, ?The Affinity Partner Program has been thoughtfully designed to
offer broad-ranging, tangible benefits to resellers that will help them speed up
time-to-market, lower the cost of doing business, and identify newer revenue
streams to help broaden their customer base and increase profitability.? With
the introduction of this program, Trend Micro expects 50 percent growth in its
number of channel partners in India.

The program comprises three levels of membership?AffinityOne, AffinityPlus
and Affinity?with different benefits depending on accreditation status. The
program is designed beyond the revenue commitment from Trend Micro?s partners
and provides them with the opportunity to advance through the program based on
five categories instead of just on the basis of revenue commitments?coverage,
contribution, commitment, capability, and capacity.

?Trend Micro is 100-percent channel-focused company. This implies that Trend
Micro?s sales are generated exclusively through our partners, and that Trend
Micro does not sell directly to end-customers. Our loyalty to our channel
partners is demonstrated by the fact that we do not compete with our channel
partners: Every rupee of our revenue comes through our partners, who are our
lifeblood,? said Nath.

AffinityOne Partners include highly qualified and committed organizations
that autonomously drive the revenue of Trend Micro within their markets, and
have already demonstrated a sizeable commitment to Trend Micro by a continuing
revenue pattern. They qualify to offer best-of-breed technical support to their
customers, building up credibility and value for their service, and are eligible
to the highest level of benefits from Trend Micro. AffinityPlus Partners are
Value Added Resellers who manage projects and business with medium complexity
and size. Integration with other security vendors is part of their
qualifications to offer a trustworthy service to the customer. Affinity Partners
are at the entry level of the Trend Micro Affinity Partner Program, whom the
company helps grow to higher levels of engagement, to ensure optimization of the
partner benefits available.

Among some of the key resources of the Affinity Partner Program, member
partners get access to the new Affinity PartnerWeb, a portal that empowers
channel partners with profile manager that provides key partner demographic and
usage information; event manager; e-Marketing; online sales lead and opportunity
management resource; motivation and incentives and deal and bid registration to
register sales opportunities and special pricing requests, and to receive Trend
Micro support and incentives.

Besides this, partners also receive higher rebates and attractive margins to
increase their sales, and also are able to use Trend Micro products for testing
and training in order to sell them effectively. In terms of technical support,
partners receive support ranging from on a 24x7 basis with shared Technical
Account Manager(s) access to a toll-free and e-mail support, to having contact
24x7, depending on their accreditation level within the program.