New Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) CEO Steve Bennett (l.) and Channel Chief John Eldh (r.) appear set to meet channel partners Sept. 11-12 in Baltimore, Md. What will their message be during Symantec Partner Engage? Here are some clues from The VAR Guy.
First, some background.
Nearly two months after Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) announced a new CEO, the security and storage software company is hosting a channel partner event in Baltimore, Md. Symantec indicated to The VAR Guy that both CEO Steve Bennett and Channel Chief John Eldh were scheduled to attend the event. But overall, the Symantec Partner Engage conference is a pretty low-key affair.
Symantec today announced a CEO change and Q1 2013 earnings. The news lifted Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) shares more than 10 percent this morning on Wall Street. So why is Wall Street applauding the switch from CEO Enrique Salem to Intuit and GE veteran Steve Bennett?
New Symantec CEO Steve Bennett (succeeding Enrique Salem effective immediately) is formerly CEO of Intuit, and previously held executive posts at General Electric. Read between the lines and Bennett brings big business smarts and SMB success to Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC), which is striving to ensure its storage and security software ride the cloud computing and mobile waves.
Symantec CEO Enrique Salem (l.) has stepped down. Chairman Steve Bennett (r.) succeeds him, stating that Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC) has been “underperforming” amid the shift to cloud computing and mobile computing (smartphones and tablets, one would logically conclude).
Symantec has named John Eldh (pictured) VP of channel sales for the Americas, succeeding Randy Cochran, who has left the security and storage software company to pursue other opportunities.
Eldh most recently was VP of sales for Symantec.cloud, which includes extensive channel partner components and familiar brands (such as Backup Exec) available on-demand.
When Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced Q2 2013 earnings today, most eyes were on Windows 8 sales. Wall Street was slightly disappointed with the company’s overall quarterly revenues. But instead of getting caught up in investor chatter, channel partners should focus — really fast — on these five areas. Here’s the list…
1.
Just the other day we were looking at Symantec’s journey into mobile protection world. Now, we learn about the Symantec Smartphone Honey Stick Project. Don’t let the name confuse you — this has nothing to do with Android (specifically) or tasty sweets. Rather, Symantec dropped 50 phones with “private” information across five major cities and recorded the results.
John Eldh has been a busy guy since taking the channel chief position at Symantec in March. His first task: Drive a “channel first” mentality into the organization. It’s still early days, and the company has had other executive issues to deal with, but Wall Street has hopes for Symantec’s growth, which Eldh said can’t happen without its partners.
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