2013/2/20 - Four EMC and RSA Channel Executives Named CRN's 2013 Channel Chiefs

• Gregg Ambulos, EMC^® Senior Vice President of Global Channel Sales
• Leonard Iventosch, EMC Vice President of Americas Channel Sales
• Fred Kohout, EMC Vice President of Global Channel Marketing
• Bill Taylor, RSA Vice President of Worldwide Channels and Alliances

For over ten years, Channel Chiefs have been selected by the CRN editorial team based on channel experience, program innovations, channel-driven revenue and public support for the importance of IT Channel Sales. This prestigious list of the most influential and powerful leaders in the IT channel recognizes those executives directly responsible for driving channel sales and growth within their organization, while evangelizing and defending the importance of the channel throughout the entire IT Industry.

Under the leadership of these executives, 2012 was a milestone year for EMC's Velocity Solution Provider channel partner program. More than 2,500 new partners were recruited globally – with 1,350 selling for the first time – and more than 7,500 accounts coming through the channel were net new to EMC. The accomplishments of EMC's and RSA's channel programs in 2012 were made possible by the continued focus on what EMC considers most critical to partners: ease of doing business, opportunities for increased profitability, technology leadership, service delivery, training and support.

In 2012 EMC introduced several new channel initiatives to make the partners' EMC channel experience simpler, more predictable and profitable:

• EMC VSPEX^™ Proven Infrastructure: Equipping its Velocity partners with the industry's most flexible reference architecture, VSPEX is based on best of breed components designed in conjunction with Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Intel, Microsoft, and VMware. Partners can fully leverage the EMC brand and industrial design in their VSPEX offerings, demonstrating EMC's understanding of the importance of the solution provider brand as the trusted adviser. And with VSPEX Labs, partners are given a cloud infrastructure to test, validate and demonstrate new VSPEX configurations.  After just two quarters since launching in April 2012, partners sold more than 1,300 VSPEX systems, making it by far the fastest-growing reference architecture in the market.
• New Channel-only Solutions: In addition to VSPEX – and building upon the success of the channel-only EMC VNXe^® family of products first announced in 2011 – in 2012 EMC introduced EMC VNXe3150, which is optimized for organizations building virtualized, private cloud environments. EMC also announced the EMC Avamar^® Business Edition, which gives more customers access to the power and simplicity of an industry-leading EMC purpose-built backup appliance.
• EMC Enterprise Select: A new strategy enabling more opportunity for the company's channel partners to sell into every market segment – SMB, Mid-market and Enterprise. The Enterprise Select go-to-market strategy has proven that the leveraged sales model works, because as EMC's direct sales representatives build their virtual sales teams comprised of many trusted partner sales representatives, they are seeing opportunities in accounts where they've had little success previously.
• EMC Global Partner Summit: The first annual inaugural partner-exclusive event was held at EMC World 2012 and is designed to help partners gain valuable insight to the future direction of the company's products, solutions and partner programs. More information about EMC's 2013 Global Partner Summit can be found here.

Additionally, EMC was recognized by CRN for the sixth consecutive year in the publication's prestigious 2012 Annual Report Card (ARC) survey. EMC was voted "Company of the Year" in the Enterprise Network Storage and Backup & Recovery Software categories and for the second year in a row was named Company of the Year in the small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) Network Storage category.

In 2012 RSA:

• Revamped its RSA^®SecurWorld^™ Partner Program to its global partner base.  Adding new Authorized tier, introducing specializations, and launching a new training program were just a few enhancements made to the program. 
• Introduced RSA SecurWorld Academy, which includes a new user interface, making it easy for partners to access and view trainings and study guides on the go, as well as enhanced deal registration for partners seeking greater certification and specializations. 
• Received "Company of the Year" recognition in the Security Software category of CRN's ARC awards. RSA also earned its first ARC Award for Network Security Software.  This was RSA's first nomination for an ARC award and RSA swept the category.

EMC and RSA Executive Quotes

Gregg Ambulos, Senior Vice President of Global Channel Sales, EMC Corporation

"On behalf of all EMC and RSA honorees, we are truly honored to be recognized as CRN's 2013 Channel Chiefs. 2012 was a banner year for EMC and our channel partners, with record growth figures in the midst of a challenging economy. Through initiatives like VSPEX, EMC's Enterprise Select GTM strategy and the evolving family of channel-only products, EMC is helping our partners take advantage of market opportunities such as cloud and Big Data while building profitable businesses for themselves. By maintaining our dedication to the success of EMC Velocity Partners, I am confident that EMC will continue to attract the next generation of solution providers to our partner organization in 2013."

Bill Taylor, Vice President of Worldwide Channels and Alliances, RSA

"2012 was a huge year for RSA and our channel partner community.  We've continuously made improvements to the way that we do business with our channel partners to help ensure our strategy is aligned with our partners' ever-changing needs.  By implementing changes to our RSA SecurWorld Partner Program, we've provided partners with an opportunity to increase their success in Authentication or Security Management solutions, giving them the ability to choose only the specializations that make sense for their business.  RSA SecurWorld specializations allow partners to position themselves competitively in the security marketplace."

Supporting Quote

Kelley Damore, Senior Vice President and Editorial Director, CRN

"The 2013 Channel Chiefs list recognizes vendor executives dedicated to driving channel programs in the IT marketplace. Our annual Channel Chiefs issue is a must-read for IT solution providers evaluating new vendors or looking to expand solution offerings. These are the people, the products and the programs that any savvy solution provider needs to know. We congratulate this year's Channel Chiefs for their stellar record of business innovation and applaud them for their continued dedication to the partner community."

Selected by CRN's editorial staff, the 2013 Channel Chiefs list is featured in the 2/25/13 issue of CRN Magazine and online at www.crn.com.

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About EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing.  Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

EMC, RSA, Velocity, SecurWorld, Avamar, VNXe and VSPEX are either registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.  All other products and/or services referenced are trademarks of their respective companies. 

SOURCE EMC Corporation