Sun plans to invest $100 million in the new Partner Growth Fund in the fiscal year as "demo dollars" for executive-level and principle-level partners in the Sun Partner Advantage Program. Money invested by Sun in the first quarter will enable partners to gain demo products before their demo dollars begin.

Bill Cate, Sun's senior director of Global Channel Planning and Programs, told CRN.com, "This is a kick start from our Systems Business Unit to get the demo systems into partners' hands right away. This will be for all our newest stuff, including our new Sun Fire 4500 and 4600 servers, and our blade chassis with blades based on Intel, AMD, and SPARC so partners can demo the interoperability between the different blades."

Partners will earn dollars based on their membership level and revenue performance. They can then purchase equipment for demonstrations. Sun will also send some products at no cost to Executive Level Partner Advantage Program Resellers, Global Systems Integrators and many ISVs.

"With this new Partner Growth Fund, our partners are better equipped than ever to compete in the technology marketplace and drive more revenue," said Don Grantham, executive vice president of Global Sales and Services at Sun.

The Partner Growth Fund will augment existing programs such as the Go-To-Market Program.

Mike Thompson, president and CEO of Groupware Technology, Inc., a Sun Advantage Partner, said, "As a reseller, it's business-critical that we have access to the newest and most cutting-edge technology that our own customers are searching for. We recognize Sun as having the best technology in the world and with the availability of Sun's new fund and the unprecedented technology access it will provide us with, we are confident that we will enhance our value proposition to the market place and impact the bottom line." [...read more...]

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