F5’s New UNITY Programme Rewards EMEA Partners That Offer Measurable Value to Joint Customers

New partner programme establishes more open, integrated partnerships with value-added resellers and distributors
 
CHERTSEY, UK, APRIL 1, 2010 – F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today launches “UNITY”, a new programme for F5 partners in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. UNITY aims to create openness in the F5 value-added partner community by establishing clear success criteria to reward partner investment, and ultimately to facilitate a world-class customer experience. 

UNITY Programme Benefits:
- Improved margin support: Makes it easy and rewarding to do business with F5 by defining clear, measurable expectations that create added value for end-users.
- New entry criteria: Establishes clarity and balanced treatment within the partner community in terms of the participation benefits and requirements of each level of the programme, and in all other interactions.
- Better support of partners that share F5’s goals: Develops well-integrated, supportive partnerships through increased levels of marketing and channel support, and improved back-end systems and processes.

Supporting Quotes
“The UNITY programme is well-balanced and considered, containing the optimal blend of incentives to focus and reward a channel partner’s attention,” said Henry Godwin, Category Head for NetSec, Software and Services at Computacenter, a leading European provider of IT infrastructure services. “Computacenter looks forward to maximising its commercial benefits and differentiation with this programme.”

“We have delivered a programme structure that identifies, measures and rewards behaviour that leads to a great customer experience,” said Michael Schoenrock, Channel Sales Director EMEA at F5. “F5 is the global and EMEA market share leader in application delivery. The UNITY programme allows both F5 and our partner community to cement this success by making it easier to offer F5 solutions that solve the most pressing issues around the delivery of secure, fast and highly reliable applications.”

“UNITY is a waypoint in F5’s global strategy of investing to further increase our partners’ effectiveness,” said Dean Darwin, VP of Worldwide Channel Sales at F5. “Aligned with our North American Lightning programme, UNITY will help our value-added channel in EMEA to augment profit levels and build deep-seated application delivery expertise.”

“It is always beneficial to partners when suppliers clearly articulate channel opportunities,” said Leslie Rosenberg, Research Manager, IDC Network Lifecycle Services. “Specifically defining what is required of partners to reap the rewards of new opportunities and what the supplier will provide in return is critical for the success of any channel programme. In this challenging economic climate, providing a programme to incentivise partners to grow business and earn more is always attractive, but giving partners the right tools to capitalise on that opportunity is a smart strategy.”