Yesterday, we wrapped up the Dell Security Peak Performance conference in Orlando. The excitement expressed by our partners, who have immersed themselves in educational technical deep dive and business breakout sessions, is inspiring. While this is the first year we’ve hosted Peak Performance under the Dell Security umbrella, this continues a long tradition of the event we hosted by SonicWALL for a decade. I’m proud to say that this time around we were joined by a sell-out crowd of nearly 490 partners from North America, Europe and Latin America, and we’ve already received outstanding feedback about the event from attending partners and distributors.
Recognizing that there has never been more opportunity in the security market than now, we are more focused than ever on offering partners extended benefits and end-to-end security solutions for better security and better business. It’s easy to focus on security as a barrier to adoption of new technology such as Cloud and BYOD. However, at Dell, we take a different view – we believe that the right security solutions can enable the adoption of new technology and new ways of doing business. Working together with our partners, we can be the technology and business enablers.
One of the most exciting elements for me this year was witnessing the engagement of our partners with our sales team on the expo floor. In particular, they were enthusiastic about the unveiling of our new Dell SuperMassive 9800, a next-generation firewall solution launched at the conference. This firewall is the most powerful model in the Dell SuperMassive 9000 series, and brings enterprise-level threat protection at a market-leading total cost of ownership, which is very attractive to education, government and business customers alike. Another exciting development at the conference was the 50 percent instant rebate that we announced on multiple Dell SonicWALL solutions through Peak-sponsoring distributors, Ingram Micro, Securematics and Tech Data. These offers were announced following a survey of our partners’ top security and business priorities conducted just prior to Peak, where partners identified rebates as an important element of a great security program.
Additionally, one of our valued SonicWALL customers and the leading global humanitarian and relief organization, International Relief & Development (IRD) delivered a keynote discussing their successful deployment of a distributed network of Dell SonicWALL products. They shared incredible insights on the work they do in rebuilding and stabilizing communities around the world, and highlighted the ways in which Dell protects and secures their environment. The partners were treated to a truly remarkable story of partnership, with Dell Security at its heart.
“Our focus is on making lives better, and we do so in some of the most challenging areas of the world. Maintaining a highly secure environment is vital to allowing our humanitarian work to continue. We have worked to build a system that is both resilient and redundant, and with Dell SonicWALL Firewalls, we have achieved this result. We have put this equipment to the test and I am proud to say we have never had a single appliance fail. We’ve never lost a document and never had any equipment go down. Because we use only Dell solutions, we have unified support and communications – benefits that come from working with just one company for our technology needs. Our focus is on making lives better, and the Dell SonicWALL technology helps us do that, not only for our aid recipients, but for those who deliver and support that aid,” said Mladen Basaric, global IT director, International Relief and Development.
“To successfully re-establish training and meet core infrastructure demands with a high level of security, our role has been to ensure 24×7 protection of the IRD network and provide necessary training to the foreign nationals who maintain the systems after we are gone. Many of these people would otherwise have no opportunity to become educated in networking and security. We remain committed to the IRD goal of providing relief to those around the world who need it, and we’re proud to build on our decade-long partnership with IRD and Dell SonicWALL to leverage superior security technology in the right ways to make lives better,” said Michael Crean, president, Solutions Granted.
And those highlights are just the start. I also had the honor of sharing the floor with Michael Dell and Dave Hansen, Global VP and General Manager of Dell Software Sales & Marketing, for a fireside chat and interactive Q&A with attending partners. Dell Channel Chief, Cheryl Cook, gave an excellent keynote where she shared her unique insights and discussed Dell’s commitment to the channel and all the proof points that support a strong channel future for Dell. Partners had a rare opportunity to share feedback and thoughts on the roadmap in a live setting.
The notable moments are too numerous to mention! At the end of the day, the time spent with our partners allowed us to further enable them to “Do More” with Dell – to discover new cutting edge products and solutions, become more strategic to their customers, and ultimately grow their profits and their business.
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