Building on Our Foundation: A Greeting from Karl Soderlund

Last month, Ron Myers passed the torch to me as senior vice president of Worldwide Channels. So far, it’s been a sprint, and I love everything about it.

I want to thank everyone for the very warm welcome. I’ve had the opportunity to connect with many people from our global partner community, including several partners and distributors in Europe and over 300 attendees at our Q4 webinars. For those who don’t know me, I am available and accessible and plan to be very involved. I’m looking forward to visiting all theatres as quickly as possible to meet more of you in person.

Now that we are in the final month of Q4, I’d like to encourage all of our NextWave partners to focus on a few things to close Q4 & FY18 strong:

1. July 31 is the Compliance Deadline. July 31, 2018 will be here before you know it. It’s important that you connect with your Palo Alto Networks Channel Business Manager or your distribution partner immediately if you haven’t already. They can provide you with forward-looking information on any expired or unfulfilled credentials that may impact your compliance and NextWave Partner level.

2. Traps 5.0. If your current portfolio of offerings doesn’t include Traps 5.0, I encourage you to consider why it should be. Traps 5.0 includes a free license for the Logging Service so our mutual customers can simplify log infrastructure, automate log management, and use the data to prevent attacks more effectively. In the new 2018 Advanced Endpoint Protection Test Report from NSS Labs, Traps had a 100% block rate for exploits and evasions; zero false positives and the lowest TCO among all 20 vendors tested. Think of how many hours a day IT resources will save by not chasing down false positives.

3. Q4 Promotions. We have three promotions that will end as the quarter closes and I challenge every partner to participate and benefit from the rewards and great discounts that we have to offer. The Secure Up SuperSized promo rewards partner sales reps and partner systems engineers up to $500 for closing Traps opportunities in Q4. On top of that, the Traps Deal Boostpromotion offers a 15% Deal Registration discount increase. You can combine these promotions and really have a nice win. Also, don’t miss out on the special pricing for NFRs to meet your NextWave Compliance requirements.

I believe that transparency, sharing thoughts on our future direction and answering questions are the most important elements of a strong transition. Please ask me questions in the comments section on this blog or email me questions via nextwavepartner@paloaltonetworks.com.

I know I have some big shoes to fill. We have an incredible channel foundation that I look forward to building on together, and I am excited about the growth opportunities that lie ahead.