Hifn Attains Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Status

Hifn has attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program with competencies in both OEM Hardware and Security Solutions, recognizing Hifn’s expertise and impact in the technology marketplace. As a Gold Certified Partner, Hifn has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and a proven ability to meet customers’ needs. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners receive a rich set of benefits, including access, training and support, giving them a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Hifn delivers the market-leading Express family of data reduction and data security card products and the award-winning Swarm™ storage software. The Swarm software features unified iSCSI SAN and NAS storage and built-in data protection features, including point-in-time snapshots and local and remote data replication. The Express family of data reduction cards delivers the industry’s most powerful and proven capacity optimization solutions while the data security cards provide the strongest encryption available in a production optimized form factor.

“Customers are looking for partner companies that can bridge the gap between their business demands and technology capabilities,” said Allison Watson, corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “They need to trust in a company that can act as an expert adviser for their long-term strategic technology plans. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners, which have certified expertise and direct training and support from Microsoft, can build a positive customer experience with our technologies. Today, Microsoft recognizes Hifn as a new Gold Certified Partner for demonstrating its expertise in providing customer satisfaction using Microsoft products and technology.”

“We are extremely pleased to have attained Gold Certified Partner status in the Microsoft Partner Program. This allows us to clearly promote our expertise and relationship with Microsoft to our customers,” said Russell Dietz, VP and CTO for Hifn. “The combination of Hifn’s market-leading storage software and Express family of card products with Microsoft storage server provides our customers with robust capabilities in a simple to install and easy to use package.”

As one of the requirements for attaining Gold Certified Partner status, Hifn had to declare a Microsoft Competency. Microsoft Competencies are designed to help differentiate a partner’s capabilities with specific Microsoft technologies to customers looking for a particular type of solution. Each Competency has a unique set of requirements and benefits, formulated to accurately represent the specific skills and services that partners bring to the technology industry. Within select Competencies, there are Specializations that focus on specific solution areas that recognize deeper expertise within that Competency. Serving as a specialized path to earning those Competencies, Specializations give direct access to the tools and resources that support that specific area of focus.

The OEM Hardware Solutions Competency is intended for partners that build and deliver desktop or server hardware systems, and those that design and manufacture hardware devices used as computer parts, peripherals or accessories. Partners that attain the OEM Hardware Solutions Competency are recognized for their expertise in delivering high-quality hardware solutions and are provided with information and tools needed to expand their market opportunities and maintain a competitive advantage in the industry.

“Partners that acquire the OEM Hardware Solutions Competency have demonstrated expertise and have a track record of building high-quality hardware solutions that are designed and configured with Microsoft technologies according to customer needs and supported to help ensure customer satisfaction,” said John Ball, general manager of the U.S. System Builder Partners Group at Microsoft Corp. “These partners are able to closely engage with Microsoft and have access to specialized resources to help them meet and even surpass customer expectations.”

The Security Solutions Competency is designed to recognize the unique skills and requirements of partners specializing in delivering security-based solutions. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners enrolled in this competency have proved their skill in advanced security solutions to help protect customer information assets by building solutions such as security management and operations, anti-malware protection and network-edge security, and identity and access management solutions.

“Security is a priority for Microsoft, and we rely on our partners to help us deliver security-based solutions to our customers,” said Mark Hassall, director of Security and Access Product Management at Microsoft Corp. “As customers continue to automate business processes, solutions competencies such as this one enable our partners to better identify and showcase their security solutions skills to respond to increasing customer demands to better secure and optimize their infrastructure.”