ADTRAN, Inc. recently introduced the ADTRAN Alliance Program, a partner program built around the company’s NetVanta 7000 Series IP PBX solutions. Under the Alliance Program, offerings from service providers and technology partners are integrated with the NetVanta products to offer combined solutions for sale through the company’s reseller channel.
Ron Wicks, ADTRAN’s marketing manager for IP telephony products, says the idea is simply to provide the company’s resellers and solution providers with a wide range of pre-approved multi-vendor solutions. “We encourage them to be the single point of contact for the end users out there, and we believe that with us doing the homework and [ensuring] the interoperability… it enables the channel to really step up and deliver integrated, world-class solutions,” he says.
The Alliance Program is currently divided into two key groups: SIP trunking service providers and IP telephony technology partners.
On the service provider side, Wicks explains, “The beauty of the Alliance is that you now can bring in a SIP trunk from a service provider and terminate it directly into the 7100, [which] eliminates a lot of external devices and a lot of expense and complication that normally go along with deploying that type of solution. It generates recurring revenue for the reseller, and it allows them to step up and be the total solution provider for their end user.”
SIP trunking service providers already signed up under the Alliance Program include Bandwidth.com, Broadvox, CommPartners Connect, Covad Communications, Speakeasy and Voxitas. “These are service providers that we have actually brought into the lab here… we’ve done the homework, we’ve worked with them and made all of the adjustments necessary to make sure that we’ve got full interoperability,” Wicks says.
On the technology partner side, Wicks says, the company’s aim is to build on its own line of IP phones by partnering with a variety of other IP endpoint companies.
One key technology partner in the Alliance Program, Wicks says, is Polycom, with which ADTRAN already has a longstanding relationship. “One of the advantages of the 7100 with Polycom is that the 7100 now fully supports the high definition voice series that they have—and we’ve put a lot of work into making the installation of those devices easier… making it nearly a zero-touch install for our channel partners and resellers,” he says.
Other technology partners include snom technology AG for both wired and wireless IP phones, CounterPath Corporation for softphones, Multi-Tech Systems for unified messaging, LifeSize Communications for high definition videoconferencing, Resource Software International (RSI) http://www.telecost.com/ for call accounting, and SIP Print LLC, which Wicks points to as a good example of how a VAR can benefit from the program in general. “In this case, our resellers will have the opportunity—if they focus on the legal market, example, if they’re selling to an attorney’s office—they’ll have the ability to go in and deliver the 7100 as the voice and data networking solution and the PBX solution, they’ll have a broad range of phones to choose from, they can resell the SIP trunk service—and they can then easily plug in the call recording solution,” he says. “And all of that has been worked out, we’ve done the homework, and it’s a proven, end-to-end solution.”
Wicks says there’s no single set of requirements for membership in the Alliance Program—instead, he says, the company is simply looking for partners whose solutions pair well with ADTRAN’s products. “What we’re really try to do is put together a program that does not have a lot of inherent costs and hurdles, because we want to be quick to market… and a lot of these partnerships are based upon SIP, so it’s fairly straightforward to be able to get the companies together, work out any SIP implementation variations, and smooth out that interoperability,” he says.
Ultimately, Wicks says, the aim of the Alliance Program is really just to make life easier for his company’s resellers—and in the future, he says, that may mean expanding the program into other areas, including managed services. “To the extent that we can help our channel partners feel comfortable that these are proven, worked out solutions, we think that that will help our resellers sell more, make more money, and support their customers better,” he says. “And in the end, we all win.”
