By Simon Quicke
16 July 2008
Symantec has outraged its US reseller partners after deciding to take business with large accounts direct.
It is unclear whether or not the change in strategy is going to be rolled out to the UK but the indications are that as its largest customers have worldwide operations those will be serviced direct on a global basis and that is likely to include some business currently serviced by British resellers.
According to US reports an analyst conference held by Symantec COO Enrique Salem included the details of the changes which are designed to save costs because it no longer sees the value in paying distribution and resellers to service a customer quite happy to go direct.
Salem is reported to have told the analysts that it had a direct touch team that was heavily involved with customers and it would now give around 900 of its largest global customers the option to buy direct.
Mike Morgan, COO at the Foundation Network Limited, which specialises in helping vendors improve relationships with resellers, said that Symantec was following a move that had been made by others but it was going to cause disruption to its entire channel.
“There is this nagging doubt about whether or not you can afford the channel and then you get to a half way house where you are using resellers to get to SMEs because the vendor cannot afford to do that itself but it wants to take the direct approach [to larger customers],” he said.
“Much as the channel is individuals it does act as a collective and it is an ecosystem and this will have a knock-on effect,” he added.
Symantec was unavailable for comment.
