Motorola Channel to Get Good

Looking to expand its distribution of Good Technology – a rival to BlackBerry -- Motorola announced March 25 that it would offer its Good Mobile Messaging and Good Mobile Intranet through its 10,000 PartnerSelect channel partners. The announcement marries the channel program of one Motorola acquisition, Symbol Technologies, with the technology of a second Motorola acquisition, Good Technology.

And the announcement came just one day before the company revealed that it plans to split itself into two separate companies -- one selling mobile devices and the other focusing on network equipment, enterprise and public safety business.

Good is considered a part of the network equipment and enterprise business, so the split should not effect any partner plan changes that are underway.

Dan Rudolph, Good's director of product marketing, said in an interview earlier this week with Channel Insider that partners would get access to all of Good's products in early April. In addition, Motorola would expand the offering to India and select Asia Pacific markets.

"This is an important move for Motorola because it helps build out the vision of end-to-end mobility," Rudolph said.

Rudolph said that Good's products primarily had been sold direct to customers or through carrier resellers who sold handsets.

"By offering it through partners we gain a huge additional distribution capability, and it also gives us an international reach," he said.

In return, partners get software licensing revenue and an annual recurring per-user fee, Rudolph said. Some VAR and solution provider partners also work with the company's carrier partners, with the carriers offering a bounty to VARs who resell Good.

Most of the company's 10,000 resellers go through distribution, Rudolph said, and in North America distributors include Avnet and Ingram Micro.

Motorola announced plans to acquire privately held Good Technology, which offers a rival network service to BlackBerry's, in November 2006. The technology has been sold primarily through cell phone carriers.

Motorola also acquired Symbol Technologies in a $3.9 billion deal, first announced in September 2006. Symbol provides enterprise mobility devices, particularly clients, and other technologies such as RFID, and is most widely used in industries such as retail and manufacturing.