Fortinet Grows Channel Program for Australia

Fortinet® - a market-leading network security provider and worldwide leader of unified threat management (UTM) solutions – today announced an expansion of its FortiPartner™ channel program in Australia with the appointment of Ingram Micro as a distribution partner and the launch of a reseller recruitment campaign.

Charles Cote, regional director for Fortinet Australia and New Zealand commented, “Most businesses in Australia are looking to spend less and achieve more. One simple way to achieve this is to consolidate multiple expensive security systems into a single integrated security appliance. As a result, Fortinet has seen enormous growth in demand for our FortiGate® appliances over the past two years. We are looking to recruit additional Australian FortiPartners that are interested in offering security and data protection solutions to businesses.”

Fortinet currently has more than 300 members in its FortiPartner channel program across Australia and New Zealand, and is looking to add an additional 100 resellers to the program by the end of 2009. The FortiPartner program aims to provide resellers with effective sales and marketing programs, training and the support services needed to enable their business success. The FortiPartner program is tiered into Platinum, Gold and Silver levels, based on revenue attainment and training.

To handle recent business growth in Australia, Fortinet has appointed Ingram Micro Australia as a distributor. The new distribution agreement will allow Ingram Micro to offer the complete range of Fortinet products, with focus being placed on integrated security solutions suitable for small-to-medium businesses. Fortinet also has distribution relationships with Ingram Micro in New Zealand, the U.S. and APAC.

“UTM security solutions and managed security services represent a fast-growing revenue opportunity for our reseller partners,” says Jay Miley, Ingram Micro’s VP and Managing Director, Australia and New Zealand  “Fortinet is a market leader in the UTM space,  with a unique range of products and services that will enable our reseller partners to add significant value to the security solutions they offer their customers.”

Michael Valentine, Fortinet’s vice president of sales for the Americas adds: “Our business in Australia has grown very rapidly over the last few years, and we hope to continue this accelerated growth with the addition of Ingram Micro as a distribution partner. We’ve had very strong success in other parts of the world, especially the U.S., through our partnership with Ingram Micro, which is well-positioned to help us grow our partner program to the next level in Australia. Our FortiGate appliances are easy to sell and support, and can help resellers to deliver a broad range of security solutions as well as security as a service to their customers. By partnering with Fortinet, resellers can quickly grow their security services revenues, by offering cost-effective managed security services.”

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)
Fortinet is the pioneer and leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management, or UTM, security systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection--including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN, web filtering, spyware prevention, and anti-spam -- designed to help customers protect against network and content level threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and a unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting capabilities. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified in six programs by ICSA Labs:  Firewall, Antivirus, IPSec VPN, SSL VPN, Network IPS, and Anti-spam. Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.

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