Vendor appoints new sales director

Juniper Networks has made changes to its channel management set-up, with David Small taking over as director of channel sales for EMEA.

Small fills the role left by Gert-Jan Schenk, who has taken over from Eddie Minshull as vice-president of operations for EMEA. Minshull moved up to become executive vice-president of worldwide field operations earlier this year.

Small told CRN: “The Juniper channel is maturing. As we bring in technology through new developments or acquisitions, these can fit into our partner programme.

“My key message to resellers is that Juniper will continue to invest in our partner programme and recognise the value that partners put in.”

Small previously controlled EMEA channels at security vendor Neoteris, which was acquired by vendor NetScreen in October 2003. NetScreen was then acquired by Juniper in February 2004.

“We [Juniper] want to maintain our progress from last year,” Small said. “Our partner programme is driving that forward and delivering value to partners.”

He added that Juniper’s partner programme is based on rewarding a diverse set of partners, and not penalising VARs for specialising in one area.

“We have altered our programme to provide benefits for the specific business requirements of resellers,” Small said.

Juniper recently revamped its J-Rewards scheme for EMEA partners, which is open to all of Juniper’s accredited EMEA Elite, Select and J-Resellers. Points can be earned against sales of Juniper’s security, routing and application acceleration products. Incentives include a choice of prizes such as American Express vouchers, cameras, and the option to convert points into charitable donations.

“These enhancements make the J-Rewards programme in EMEA even more attractive to a wide range of people,” Small said. “They include a lot of suggestions made by our partners. We’ve also streamlined the administration process in our Partner Centre, allowing VARs to register and redeem points online.”

Grahame Smee, managing director of Juniper distributor equIP, said: “Our Juniper relationship is going well, particularly in the router business. We have interaction with everyone at Juniper. We find its channel is well policed and hope it continues in the same vein.”