During a June 12 conference, Symantec COO Enrique Salem announced the following: "Symantec over the last 25 years has been very focused on a two-tier distribution strategy, but as we've built out a very strong direct sales force where we're heavily engaged with each customer, it doesn't make sense to continue to leverage both a distributor and a partner to serve let's say, the seven, eight, 900 largest customers in the world." He continued to explain that those top customers will now have the option to go direct, cutting out the distributor. Salem explained that "if the distribution channel is not adding value there's no reason to keep them as part of the equation." Since then, Symantec has been doing damage control stating that they are not shifting their strategy away from the channel in any meaningful way, but some of their resellers were clearly alarmed.

Alex Quinonez, VP of Sales at Astaro, said "The value of our channel is simple: it's equal to our total revenue. We will continue to reinvest resources into our channel because they are the engine that keeps our sales growing. For instance, we recently quadrupled the size of our field channel marketing team to help support the efforts of our partners and already we are seeing it pay off." To reflect their appreciation of the channel, Astaro is offering an open invitation to join the Astaro Partner Program and receive an additional 20 percent discount for those resellers that wish to change a Symantec renewal opportunity into an Astaro purchase. Joining Astaro's partner program allows resellers to take advantage of a newly built field channel marketing team, resources, training, as well as aggressive margins of up to 40 percent.