Since the acquisition in August 2006, Quantum, based in San Jose, Calif., continued with the two existing legacy channel partner programs, but promised a quick integration of the two.

"The biggest piece of advice we received from analysts, press and reseller partners was, don't make the channel deal with two entities for too long a period of time," said Bill Cox, Quantum's vice president of channel sales for the Americas. Cox joined Quantum more than two years ago, but previously had worked for Redmond, Wa.-based ADIC. "We took that as our mantra moving forward in integrating this channel program."

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Click here to read more about Quantum's acquisition of ADIC.

The biggest differences between the two programs were pricing and discounts, Cox said. For the new channel partner program, Quantum has adopted a simplified MSRP pricing and discount from list program—something brought over from the previous ADIC channel program.

The new program also offers improved incentives for deal registration.

ESP and Premiere partners are required to name a distributor of choice, enabling those partners to establish investment relationships with the distributors.

In addition, Quantum has added ADIC products into the existing online "configurator" tool. VARs can enter a product set requirement into the tool and the tool will spit out the appropriate product to sell, while the online resource also provides a place to consolidate the registration, pricing and reseller program, Cox said.

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The new program offers three tiers—ESP (Enterprise Storage Partner), Premiere Partner and Registered Reseller—based on sales volumes and backup, recovery, and archive competencies, Quantum said. For example, ESP partners produce more than $1 million a year and Premiere partners do more than $400,000.

"There were differences in go-to-market strategy," said Cox. "I think my perspective on the overall value of the channel was skewed until I got to Quantum. If you look at it from a Quantum perspective, we were more focused on the channel."

But, he said, the new integrated channel program was able to include the best pieces of each partner program.