Raleigh, N.C. – June 28, 2006 – Building on the existing small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) channel strategy responsible for amassing thousands of global partners and more than 160,000 customers worldwide, GFI Software, an international leader and developer of network security, content security and messaging software, announced today several enhancements to its Global Partner Program to be rolled out regionally beginning in the Americas.  The improved program will further help GFI partners resolve the security and messaging challenges faced within the SMB market. 

Better channel sales margins eliminate competition between partner categories
To lay the foundation for the new enhancements, GFI has improved and segmented the sales margins to differentiate between the pricing strategies used by its value added reseller (VAR) and direct market reseller (DMR) partners, reducing price competition between these two partnership categories. Aiding the facilitation of improved margins, VARs can now qualify for GFI’s Gold, Silver and Bronze partnership levels, which are based on revenue attainment, sales and technical competencies, and local presence. The DMR partners will qualify for product rebates and marketing development funds based on achieving annual performance goals.

“Given that SMBs make up the vast majority of the worldwide economy, many software companies are developing ‘lite’ software versions for this market that were originally intended for enterprise-level companies,” said Charlotte Dunlap, information security analyst of Current Analysis. “In contrast, GFI’s philosophy has always been to build its solutions to solve the security and messaging issues for the SMB market and price those solutions to meet the limited IT budget resources.” 

Improving the partner’s ability to solve IT challenges
All partners, Gold, Silver and Bronze, are eligible for solution sales techniques training, product certification, free software evaluation, electronic sales collateral and the monthly GFI Reseller eNewsletter. In addition, partners qualifying at the Gold and Silver tiers receive added benefits such as technical certification, channel account management and qualified leads.

“One of the improved benefits of our channel program is the stronger focus on training,” said Curtis H. Staker, CEO and chairman of GFI. “Since the majority of our customers own just one or two products out of our portfolio of nine, we are going to teach our partners how to sell full solutions to solve a greater number of IT issues for the SMB market.”

In addition to the enhanced programs, GFI will support its VAR and DMR partners with geographically distributed channel account managers and inside channel account managers. Located in Western, Midwestern and Eastern United States’ geographies, the outside channel managers will work directly with Gold-level VARs, while the inside channel managers will work with directly with the Silver partners on market development initiatives.

The Global Partner Program will be made available to the EMEA and APAC regions early in Q3 2006. In addition, GFI will provide sales and technical content to qualifying partners through the GFI reseller website during Q3, and courses for technical certification will be available starting in Q4. For more information about GFI’s Global Partner Program, visit www.gfi.com.