Digest: News from IBM, Ingram Micro, PatchLink

IBM partners working on SOA (service-oriented architecture) solutions can take advantage of free and discounted advertising rates in IT and trade publications through the end of the year.

Through a marketing campaign, the Armonk, N.Y., company is expected to announce Wednesday at IBM PartnerWorld that Advance Level partners and above can use the program to design and place ads in more than 190 technology and industry-specific publications worldwide including IDG, Insurance Networking News, Integrated Solutions for Retailers and Selling Power. The program includes the use of IBM's advertising creations and support from Affinity Penwell, an IBM advertising agency.

IBM expects the advertising campaign to both promote individual solution providers and advance the level of knowledge about SOA solutions among business leaders, the company said in a prepared statement released Tuesday.

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IBM has negotiated rates with the publications based on the large volume involved. The discount for partners is based on the size and frequency of the ad.

Participating advertisements must use logos for both IBM and its WebSphere integration software and one of two SOA-related taglines.

Read more about VARs that have used IBM's PartnerWorld marketing and advertising resources to increase market visibility and sales.

A more sweeping program launched this summer provides IBM's VAR and ISV partners with discounts in many of the same publications, creative and design support, and discounts on direct mailings and access to the company's telemarketing network. Allfinanz, a Dublin, Ireland-based ISV serving the insurance industry, used the program to turn a $40,000 advertising campaign into a full-on media and direct mail blitz that netted 14 leads in six months.

Ingram Micro Inc. is launching on Wednesday the GovEd Advisory Council to help guide the distributor's endeavors in the public sector, the company announced Tuesday.

The council, made up of 10 VAR members of Ingram's GovEd Alliance, will work with the distributor to identify trends and market needs for solutions and products, the company said in an announcement. VAR members will cover the scope of GovEd Alliance's membership—federal, state and local government, and K-12 and higher education.

"The public sector is one of the few markets that VARs can look to for consistent technology sales and business opportunities," said Bob Laclede, Ingram's vice president and general manager of government and education sales, in a prepared statement. "But selling into government and education takes investment and requires specific sales and technology expertise and resources. That's where GovEd Alliance comes into play. … We help partners understand and navigate the intricacies of the public sector while keeping them aware of growth technologies and new business models like remote managed services."

The GovEd Advisory Council will be launched at GovEd Alliance Invitational, the group's annual education and sales convention for VARs focused on public-sector institutions, held this year at Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The convention serves as the distributor's major face-time event with all its partners in the sector, allowing a discussion on trends and best practices.

Read more here.

Citing increased demand for its multiplatform, multivendor security patches and software, PatchLink Corp. is expanding the marketing and support resources of its partner program.

Partners in PatchLink's three-tier partner program will be provided with individual partner Web portals, where they will have access to specific partner-level information, product updates, marketing campaigns, training resources, competitive insights, online prospect registration and end-user prospects registration.

Network Physics has married its NetSensory optimization/application acceleration technology with the reporting and analysis capabilities of Crannog Software's NetFlow software to create an all-in-one solution to find and fix run-time solutions.

Available through Network Physics' partner program, the new tool, NP-200 for NetFlow, is designed to integrate the NetFlow reporting and analysis capabilities inherent in almost all routers and large switches from Cisco Systems and Cisco technology partner vendors with NetSensory flow-based technology to give a more detailed insight into the application performance response times, the company said in an announcement Monday.

The new appliance is built to enable users to identify applications on the network and the percentage of bandwidth they're consuming, users or offices affected by performance issues, systems affected by a virus or worm, the impact after introducing new users/applications/systems, Internet usage, and the applications "talking" to other applications. It should also ensure service levels for critical traffic are being met and analyze a carrier's costs.

Read more here.