Partner Engage EMEA 2012: re:thank and re:think

[JasonEllis]

I’m always excited about meeting our partners from across the region and I have to say that this first stand-alone edition of Partner Engage in EMEA more than fulfilled my expectations. What a delight to meet so many of you from all countries across the region! And that went far beyond just meeting, but also discussing and interacting with you, and seeing you catching new networking opportunities there.

It also went beyond my expectations as this year’s theme, re:think, was about going beyond our existing relationships and existing opportunities. Partner Engage 2012 was clearly aimed at empowering you with the latest information, sales and technical expertise as well as insights in order to meet our clients’ needs in higher information protection better and together. It was about re:thinking the way we can maximize opportunities, re:imagining how to make it easier for SMBs to do business with us and altogether, re:energizing the way we do business together, as Symantec is clearly a partner-centric organization.

In this re:thinking development, I was more than pleased to welcome so many of our executives from the US and across the EMEA region, who, through their presentations and the expert meetings, were able to share their knowledge and outlook on key IT strategic trends that are virtualization, cloud and of course mobility.

Partner Engage was also a fantastic opportunity to help our Specialist and Master Specialist partners and provide them with new planning tools that give further information on IT trends, what we see as future opportunities and help them get a better idea on our vision and strategy.

And of course, let’s not forget all the fun we had together, from the gala dinner to the late-night discussions, from having your mind read by the magician (and I wish I could read Bill Robbins’ and John Brigden’s!...) to seeing a less alert audience the morning after the dinner before!

And while we speak of the dinner, which was also the opportunity to call out those partners who stood out for their dedication and support, let me congratulate again for their Channel Excellence Award:

·       Small Business Partner of the Year 2011: Softline, Russia

·       Cloud Partner of the Year 2011: Datacentrix, South Africa

·       Enterprise Partner of the Year 2011: Croc, Russia

·       Value Added Distributor of the Year 2011: TIM AG, Germany

·       Most Innovative Partner 2011: PMCS GmbH & Co. KG, Germany

·       President Award  2011: Infoniqa SQL AG, Switzerland

·       Marketing Award 2011: Arrow ECS, UK

A big thank you for, have a great, successful year and let’s meet again at Vision later this year!