With the Symantec authorized consulting partner program, partners can broaden their existing consulting capabilities and offer a range of advanced services leveraging Symantec's expertise and best practices in security, compliance, systems and storage management, Symantec of Cupertino, California said.

The Symantec authorized consulting partner program enables partners to build a more profitable consulting practice through enhancing their expertise with access to Symantec's consulting best practices, technical training and advanced support, Symantec said. The additional partner benefits, include co-marketing opportunities to use the Symantec brand and differentiate their business in a competitive marketplace, joint business planning, priority access to Symantec enterprise support, and technical job shadowing, the company said.

Symantec is a provider of infrastructure software, which enables businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance and performance, Symantec said.

As customer needs continue to evolve, Symantec plans to provide partners with additional resources through the Symantec authorized technical assistance partner program to expand levels of customer assistance for Symantec solutions, and offer additional value-add services, Symantec said. Focused on increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, this program offers technical assistance training for key volume products, including Backup Exec and Symantec AntiVirus, and real-time priority telephone access to Symantec specialists, to help partners resolve customer needs more quickly, the company said.

Both these new programs offer partners the benefit of serving as the local provider managing the account activity, allowing partners to drive dialogues around additional business requirements, and satisfy the customer's need for additional services, Symantec said.

These new partner programs are the latest offerings from Symantec Global Services, Symantec said. In April this year, Symantec introduced its new online software platform Symantec Protection Network. Offered through Symantec's channel partner network, the Symantec Protection Network will provide small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) with comprehensive protection for IT through a range of web-delivered availability and security offerings, the company said. Symantec Online Backup, currently offered in beta form, will also be delivered through the Symantec Protection Network. Symantec Online Backup will provide customers with cost-effective, secured, and reliable web-based backup and restoration of critical data, Symantec added.

With the launch of these new Symantec partner services programs, Symantec is making its best practices and support available to partners who want to build or strengthen their services practice, Symantec said. As a provider of solutions that manage IT risk and maximize IT performance, Symantec is pleased to offer its partners the latest in services solutions for security, data protection and data recovery, Symantec added.

Symantec is committed to bringing more opportunity to its partners worldwide and plans to extend this commitment with additional service offerings in the upcoming year, Symantec said.

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