Stories by: Maxine Cheung

At a time when most businesses are looking to cut costs and leverage existing resources, channel partners may feel discouraged in the marketplace. But according to Lora Gernon, senior director of Microsoft Canada's partner group, there's actually no better time than now for partners to start having conversations with their customers.

As a long-time veteran in the IT channel industry, Julie Parrish sent waves in the channel when she announced her departure from Symantec. Now the vice-president of worldwide channel sales at NetApp, Parrish is focusing her efforts on getting to know the company's partners to ensure their profitability now and into the future.

With last year's acquisition of Port Authority, a data loss prevention (DLP) vendor and SurfControl, a Web and e-mail security company, Websense has since evolved from being known as a Web solution company to establishing itself as one that also provides DLP and e-mail security solutions.

Relax, we're still all about the channel. That's the message Symantec is seeking to send to its partners after remarks by its COO during a conference call had many questioning the security vendor's commitment to the indirect model.

Larry Keating, the president and CEO of Canadian-based No Panic Computing (NPC), is trying to revolutionize the way notebooks are purchased by small business professionals with his notebook-as-a-service model.

Although Julie Parrish, the vice-president of the global channel office at Symantec, is pleased with the company's current channel and customer reach, she says there is still room for improvement, particularly when it comes to building and enhancing upon its partner programs and incentives.