SUNNYVALE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/07/15 -- Fortinet^®(NASDAQ: FTNT) -- a global leader in high-performance cyber security solutions, today announced it has further enhanced its partner program for the Americas based on direct feedback from partners and the need to continuously meet the market requirements of the quickly evolving cyber security landscape. The Fortinet program includes re-aligned partner levels and new training and certification designed to help partners better protect their customers from cyber threats by becoming experts on the full range of Fortinet solutions, extending their service offerings and expanding into new areas of the security market.

"As a purely channel-led organization in a dynamic industry like cyber security, it's important we listen to our partners on a regular basis and make investments in our programs that will enable us to grow our business together by delivering the utmost value to customers," said Joe Sykora, vice president of channels and operations at Fortinet. "As the cyber threat landscape becomes more complex, we have made changes to our partner program designed to support partner profitability and success, while ensuring the highest levels of security for our joint customers."

Enhancements to the Fortinet Partner Program Include:

NSE Certification Helps Mitigate Looming Security Threats
Organizations today are ever more concerned with the cyber security risks they face and the possibility of breaches that could tarnish their brand or negatively impact their core business and customers. Taking additional steps to improve technical skills and experience is an important differentiator for partners working to help ensure their critical data and the data of the customers they serve is aptly protected.

Designed for all technical professionals interested in independent validation of their network security skills and experience, the eight-level Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) program is provided free-of-charge to the entire Fortinet global partner community of more than 10,000 partners. Those who complete all eight levels of the program will be provided unprecedented industry recognition of expertise in network security at all levels, including a prestigious expert level step to recognize only the best of the best security practitioners. Unlike other network security certification programs available today, the Fortinet NSE program offers a well defined and highly structured approach for professionals at all levels from novice in networking security technologies through industry experts, securing the most complex environments.

Fortinet NSE provides an important differentiator for partners, allowing them to demonstrate a diverse range of critical security skills to better service existing and new customers. In addition, the NSE program offers a number of tangible benefits for partners specific to their level, which include enhanced escalation, invitations to NSE-only events and public recognition for certification.

To date, more than 2,000 partners have signed up and begun NSE training, including large global partners like HP, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, Hughes, Bell Canada, Dimension Data, Carousel, Ingram Micro, Fujitsu and Bulletproof Solutions.

Global Alignment of Partner Levels Provides Greater Growth Opportunities
Fortinet has redefined its partner levels in order to provide a common structure that partners can leverage globally. The program offers more clearly differentiated levels that reflect partners' core competencies and areas of expertise. It is designed to help identify and grow resellers' service strength and areas of specialty, aligned to their respective business goals, while providing the appropriate partnership resources for advanced support, development and opportunity growth in untapped markets.

Fortinet's industry-leading channel partner program serves VARs, system integrators, corporate resellers and MSSPs. New partner levels include:

• Platinum partners - proven experts that have demonstrated consistently high revenue and the ability to deliver the full range of Fortinet security solutions, with excellent levels of customer satisfaction and support.
• Gold partners - proven in selling the full range of Fortinet solutions on a large number of projects, recognized for customer service and support capabilities and committed to developing new adoption opportunities for Fortinet in their served market.
• Silver partners - deliver superior security solutions to small and medium-sized customers, and possess a working knowledge of Fortinet's small-to-mid-range multi-threat security solutions.
• Authorized partner - the first partner level required to become a member of the Fortinet channel network.

Focus Results in More Business for Fortinet Partners
As part of its enhanced partner program model, Fortinet has also assigned a dedicated Channel Account Manager for each partner account. These account representatives do not have shared responsibilities for attending to multiple partners. This provides Fortinet a great deal of focus and its partners the peace of mind knowing Fortinet is fully dedicated to driving their business. In addition, Fortinet's Deal Registration Program, which is managed by a dedicated Deals Desk, help ensure its partners are protected on every deal they initiate and bring to Fortinet.

"Everything we do is with our customers' and partners' success in mind, and our new program enhancements are a testament to that commitment," said Sykora. "We will continue making improvements as needed to ensure we are in lock-step with our partners, and can continue driving sales with them through a program that is truly best-in-class."

To find out more about the Fortinet Partner Program, visit: http://www.fortinet.com/partners/index.html.
The new certification program is currently available. For more information, go to: http://www.fortinet.com/training/nse.html.

About Fortinet
Fortinet(NASDAQ: FTNT) protects the most valuable assets of some of the largest enterprise, service provider and government organizations across the globe. The company's fast, secure and global cyber security solutions provide broad, high-performance protection against dynamic security threats while simplifying the IT infrastructure. They are strengthened by the industry's highest level of threat research, intelligence and analytics. Unlike pure-play network security providers, Fortinet can solve organizations' most important security challenges, whether in networked, application or mobile environments -- be it virtualized/cloud or physical. More than 210,000 customers worldwide, including some of the largest and most complex organizations, trust Fortinet to protect their brands. Learn more at http://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog or FortiGuard Labs.

Copyright ^© 2015 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ^® and ^™ denote respectively federally registered trademarks and unregistered trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet's trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiGuard, FortiManager, FortiMail, FortiClient, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiReporter, FortiOS, FortiASIC, FortiWiFi, FortiSwitch, FortiVoIP, FortiBIOS, FortiLog, FortiResponse, FortiCarrier, FortiScan, FortiAP, FortiDB, FortiVoice and FortiWeb. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements or certifications herein attributed to third parties and Fortinet does not independently endorse such statements. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, nothing herein constitutes a warranty, guarantee, binding specification or other binding commitment by Fortinet, and performance and other specification information herein may be unique to certain environments. This news release contains forward-looking statements, such as statements related to growth opportunities that involve uncertainties and assumptions. Changes of circumstances, changes in demand and the market, competitive landscape changes, market perception changes, product release delays, or other risks as stated in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, located at www.sec.gov, may cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this press release. If the uncertainties materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Fortinet assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, and expressly disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

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Fortinet, Inc.
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Fortinet, Inc.
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Fortinet, Inc.  
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Source: Fortinet

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