UPDATED 10:00 EST / JANUARY 20 2012

Juniper Networks Revamps Partner Program

Networking gear maker Juniper is still going at it, and had a pretty significant announcement at its first ever Global Partner Conference held this week at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas.  It  relaunched its line-up of partner initiatives under a new a new title, Partner Advantage, which features three separate and enhanced solution suites.

Partner Advantage Reach is a training program for sales reps and technical service clerks, and offers certifications for various parts of Juniper’s networking portfolio. Partner Advantage Accelerate in turn is a set of marketing tools and material, coupled with an iPad app, and  Advantage Reward covers Juniper’s new partner compensation policies. It includes several initiatives designed to attract and boost new partners that join the company’s ecosystem.

Juniper didn’t stop there, extending this revamp beyond the new program.

On the marketing side, Juniper has continued to invest in on-demand marketing tools such as the InnoVAR series of Webinars it launched last summer. At the partner conference, Juniper also took the wraps off Marketing Concierge, an online portal where partners can access marketing materials, interface with Juniper’s marketing team and receive tailored training on how to use tools such as video and social media to build their marketing presence.

Also at the conference, Juniper executives took the opportunity to note some of their company’s most recent achievements. CEO Kevin Johnson highlighted to the thousands of partners that watched him that Juniper has maintained a steady 15 percent growth rate year over year, and that its ecosystem grew by 10 percent. This is in spite of the fact that the company expects a decline in fourth quarter earnings, supposedly because of an overall market trend. This is a claim Cisco has adamantly denied.

The chief of Cisco’s video business dismissed Juniper’s reasoning in an interview, though he did acknowledge the fact some segments have taken a big hit recently.


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