In fact, to ensure you are equipped with everything you need to act upon all that we presented and discussed, we’ve created a dedicated Partner Summit 2012 webpage just for you.  Click here to easily access all the presentations, videos, helpful content, collateral and photos from the event.

If you missed the 2012 Partner Summit, our Town Hall on Nov. 8, 2012 provided a recap not only of my Partner Summit keynote, but also a Q3 business review, an informative network security technology chat with McAfee SVP & GM Pat Calhoun, and then closed off with our key priorities and call to action for Q4.  If you missed the Town Hall, you can access the on-demand recording here.

One key component I identified in our Partner Connected formula for success is picking a vendor that is relevant to your business. A vendor that has a channel strategy that drives mutual profitability and provides the innovative solutions that allow you to differentiate and grow. Let me highlight a few recent accolades that exemplify why McAfee is the best vendor for today’s security-focused partners:

• Made CRN’s 2012 Top 25 Companies to Partner With
• Q3 Gartner Magic Quadrant Leaders: Secure Email Gateways, IPS Systems, Mobile Data Protection
• SC Magazine Database Activity Monitoring Best Buy Rating
• CRN: McAfee Unveils Best Practice Initiative for Channel Partnerships
• 2012 ChannelPro SMB All-Star
• VARGuy: Security Connected Platform

Our quest is to be your leading vendor of choice.  In short, I want an unfair share of your attention, resources and commitment to be truly connected.

In 2012, we’ve built out several new programs, tools and resources we believe are critically relevant to ensuring your success with McAfee. Simply go to the new McAfee partner portal to:

• FIND OUT—Answers to your questions, simply type in your question in Partner Chat
• FIGURE OUT—How much you stand to profit using the Profitability Calculator (Profitability Section)
• FINISH OUT—Complete Certification by December 31, (Training & Events Section)
• STAND OUT—Check your status on the ACE Activity Tracker (Training & Events Section)

I cannot stress enough how important it is we work together and connect to achieve our mutual business goals.  Let’s close out this year with a big bang as we move aggressively into 2013.

With Vegas still lingering in the back of my mind, I’m all in.  How about you?

The momentum we are building together already encourages me, especially when you consider our recent industry accolades. In Q1 we garnered two industry awards from CRN – McAfee placed on the Top 20 Coolest Cloud Security Vendors list and we earned the coveted 5-Star Partner Program Award, which is based on our level of commitment to the channel, breadth of program offerings and services offered to partners. Both of these awards put McAfee in exclusive company and are a testament to our hard work and commitment to deliver superior products and programs that drive mutual success.

As we kick off Q2, we continue to focus on driving mutual profitability by investing in, growing with, and optimizing for you. I want to quickly highlight a few areas we are investing in to help fuel growth in Q2:

• SMB — We see an enormous growth opportunity in the SMB market. With this in mind we have made an investment in our SMB Rewards Program; SMB Extravaganza, as much as quadrupling our payout on 1-250 nodes of TSA, TSB and STP products. Yes, you can earn $2/node you sell! Log on to McAfee Rewards to get started.
• Commercial – This is another market opportunity where together I see tremendous growth potential. To help compensate you for driving McAfee sales in this market we more than doubled our Commercial Rewards; McAfee Extravaganza, payout on 251-1000 node deals that include EPA, STP, TSA and TEB products.
• Partner Enablement – In Q1 we announced the evolution of our partner enablement strategy, unveiling the McAfee Partner Learning Center, our new continuing education approach to maintaining annual certifications and our first continuing education learning module; the 2012 Virtual Sales Kickoff. I encourage all of our partners to login to our partner portal and access informative “Sales Plays”. Not only is it fresh and valuable content, participating allows you to earn credits toward your annual certification.

In closing, I wanted to remind you that our next Town Hall meeting is Thursday, May 3^rd where  we will feature McAfee Co-President, Mike DeCesare as well as  McAfee SVP, Advanced Technology and Field Engineering, Mike Fey, who will outline our market opportunity in Database Security. Please mark your calendars for this important webcast.

Welcome to Q2 and good selling.