SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO at Fortinet
“With today’s digital innovations being a catalyst for organizations to evolve their networks and security strategies, we have transformed our partner program so partners can untap new opportunities and rising markets, including SD-WAN. Building on our investment in our partners, the new program offers specializations, updated enablement initiatives and tailored support for unique business models to further partner success.”   

News Summary
Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity solutions, recently introduced its new Fortinet Engage partner program. The program provides partners with specializations focused on growing markets, including SD-WAN and cloud, customized support and engagement flexibility to accelerate their business growth and expansion.

Helping Partners Keep Up With Digital Innovations
Organizations are rapidly evolving and expanding their networks to keep up with the digital economy. By 2023, IDC predicts that the global economy will finally reach "digital supremacy" with more than half of all GDP worldwide driven by products and services from digitally transformed enterprises. As organizations transform their networks, security plays a critical role and also needs to evolve to keep up with new business demands.

Recognizing this, Fortinet designed new enablement initiatives and specializations, allowing partners to take advantage of digital innovations and this changing landscape. Fortinet’s Engage partner program provides greater flexibility on partner engagement, offers customized support to partners’ business models and allows partners to specialize in emerging areas through tailored training and certifications.

Expanding Partner Opportunities Through New Partner Program
Fortinet’s Engage partner program addresses the required technology and sales skills needed from new network ecosystems, such as next-gen branch offices and dynamic cloud environments comprised of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud. The new program is based on three main concepts, including:

• Specializations: Partners are able to select an area of specialization to receive additional support and benefits in their chosen areas. These include: Dynamic Cloud, Secure Access and Branch, Secure SD-WAN and Data Center. Customized training and certifications are available for each of these specializations to help partners upskill in emerging areas, further enabling partners to capitalize on growth opportunities.   
   
• Business Model: Fortinet offers specialized support for partners that fit the following three business models: MSSP partners, Market Place partners and Traditional Integrator partners. By offering customized support for these unique business models, Fortinet is evolving its partner program to further embrace growing business areas such as the selling of managed services. 
   
• Engagement: Partners have greater flexibility when determining the level of engagement they want to have with Fortinet. They’re able to select the type of expertise they want developed, the benefits and the revenue stream. This allows partners to select how they want to work with Fortinet to grow their business. As a result, there are four new levels of partnership outlined in the program ranging from Fortinet Advocate, Fortinet Select, Fortinet Advance and Fortinet Expert. More information about what these levels entail is available here.

Partner Supporting Quotes

“As a longtime Fortinet partner, Infosec Partners has been providing our customers with advanced security through the company’s Security Fabric platform approach. Just as the security landscape is everchanging, so are the business needs of our customers. Recognizing this, Fortinet’s new partner program allows us to take full advantage of the growing opportunities that the expanding digital marketplace provides through extensive, tailored support and specializations in areas like SD-WAN, Secure Access and Branch as well as bespoke decoy and deception controls.”
Mark Oakton, CISO, Infosec Partners

“Fortinet has the unique combination of product innovation and partner enablement initiatives. Fortinet’s new partner program builds on its existing initiatives, providing specializations focused on high growth areas to enable partners like us to further expand our business. We look forward to leveraging enhanced aspects of the program as we continue to invest in our partnership.”   
- Koshy Oommen, Director – Infrastructure and Security at Intertec Systems LLC 

“As the Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) market has grown and evolved Fortinet has maintained a steady presence, providing new and innovative solutions to Layer 3 Communications. This enables us to meet the security requirements of our customers. Seeing the new partner program add more incentives for different business models is a true testament of Fortinet’s commitment to helping MSSPs like us grow our managed security services, ultimately leading to maximizing profitability.” 
-Rodney Turner, President & CEO at Layer 3 Communications

“As our customers migrate to the cloud, they depend on NuSpective Solutions to help design and deploy their cloud environment for optimal scale, performance and security. With security being a critical part of our customers’ cloud strategy, Fortinet has been an invaluable partner in helping us provide greater value to our customers in this endeavor. We are pleased with the Dynamic Cloud specialization and the additional training available to us through the new partner program. This enables our team to expand our knowledge and expertise in this growing space.” 
 -Dave McMorrow, Principal and Co-Founder at NuSpective Solutions

“We’re excited about Fortinet’s new partner program. The Missing Link has heavily focused on leveraging Fortinet’s NSE Institute training and certification to become a leading provider, and the results speak for themselves. Fortinet has consistently been one of our fastest-growing vendors, year after year. The granularity and specificity of this program lets partners choose which areas and capabilities they wish to specialize in, including growing markets like SD-WAN. We look forward to continuing to invest in Fortinet to ensure The Missing Link can continue to provide the best level of service, innovation, and security to its clients.”
- Aaron Bailey, Chief Information Security Officer at The Missing Link

“Fortinet continues to provide MSSPs outstanding support as it evolves its new partner program’s enablement to further focus on modern business models like ours. Fortinet has been instrumental in our business success, and we look forward to building on our partnership as we continue to expand our managed services offerings and deliver ever-increasing value to our customers.”
-Brian Page, Chief Technology Officer at Xiologix

Additional Resources

• More information on Fortinet’s Engage partner program is available here.
• Find out how the Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protection across an organization’s entire digital infrastructure.
• Engage in our Fortinet User community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology, or connect with peers.
• Learn more about Fortinet’s Network Security Expert program, Network Security Academy program, and FortiVet program.
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. 

About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. Fortinet empowers our customers with complete visibility and control across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements today and into the future. Only the Fortinet Security Fabric platform can address the most critical security challenges and protect data across the entire digital infrastructure, whether in networked, application, multi-cloud, or edge environments. Fortinet ranks #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide and more than 440,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. Both a technology company and a learning company, the Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) Institute has one of the largest and broadest cybersecurity training programs in the industry. Learn more at http://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.    

FTNT-O

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Source: Fortinet, Inc.