Symantec's SaaS program

by Dan Blacharski

October 31, 2008 —

I wrote yesterday on how backup and storage is seen as "essential" and is therefore immune to economic downturns; it seems Symantec had the same idea. Symantec just went live with their Symantec Protection Network Partner Program, a two-tier software-as-a-service offering that's offering resellers a good margin (23 or 15 percent, depending on tier). The Protection Network offerings include Symantec Online Backup, Symantec Online Storage for Backup Exec, and Symantec Online Remote Access.

Naturally, they will be adding the all-important messaging and web security offerings as well. According to reports, Premier partners will be able to sell the SaaS offerings as an authorized sales agent, or by bundling SaaS with other hardware and software sales. The latter is an excellent option for resellers; although SaaS delivers the advantage of recurring revenue, bundling it with other products gives you the advantage of being more of an end-to-end reseller.