EMC has enhanced its deal registration program and added more incentives for partners and their sales executives who invest in training and attaining certifications for EMC technologies.

The enhancements are designed to streamline channel partners’ dealings with EMC at the same time it rewards them for vendor loyalty to the company during challenging economic times.

EMC says its Velocity2 Partner Program’s Incremental Deal Registration will now reward partners with a 5 percent discount off the list price. To qualify, the opportunity must be net new to EMC.

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Separately, in April, EMC introduced a program called Prime Deal Registration that turns EMC-generated leads for midmarket customers over to qualified partners.

“We want to bring the partner in and give them the opportunity to work on the engagement on EMC’s behalf,” Gregg Ambulos, vice president of Americas Channel Sales, tells Channel Insider. “We want to give to partners who have made the investment. We want to give to partners who can take the registration and run with it.”

EMC is also extending new rewards to partners who invest in training and certification with EMC. Specifically, partners who invest in EMC Technical Architect certifications will be rewarded with an additional 10 points. To qualify, the partner must have a local TA working the deal, according to Ambulos, and not just fly in a TA from another location.

EMC introduced the TA certification training a year ago, says Ambulos. The time commitment is 15 to 16 eight-hour days and is delivered in a five-step process. It consists of training workshops, online training, technical support and coaching, along with a proctored exam. It’s offered for a fee of about $2,000.

In the year since it has introduced this certification, EMC has trained hundreds of TAs, says Ambulos, and many more are signed up for the training.

In addition, EMC has also renamed and revamped its Journey to the Top program. Now called the Velocity Incentive program, partners are able to get stackable rebates for a host of EMC technologies including storage hardware, backup, recovery and archive software and security. Both channel partners and sales executives within those partner organizations are rewarded.

“We’ll determine which offerings we are trying to highlight and will reward that sales rep and technical sales rep with an incentive for that offering,” says Ambulos. “And if they tie in SourceOne, they can get an additional incentive.” In addition, the new program now allows partners to tie in RSA technology as well for the first time.