Avnet Adds Riverbed to Portfolio

Avnet Technology Solutions and Riverbed Technology have signed a distribution agreement. Avnet will distribute Riverbed’s complete line of IT infrastructure optimization appliances and tools through its value-added reseller partner community in North America.

The Riverbed family of wide area network (WAN) optimization solutions helps businesses address a multitude of complex IT issues by increasing application performance, enabling consolidation, and providing enterprise-wide network and application visibility. These appliances and tools will enable Avnet’s partners to address their customers’ business challenges related to wide-area distributed computing. Partners can also leverage Avnet’s recently announced NetworkPath’ practice to develop the market specialization and skills needed to incorporate Riverbed’s products into their network-focused solutions.

"Networking is at the heart of any company’s IT infrastructure, and solutions that improve network performance have a positive impact on employee productivity," said Gavin Miller, vice president and general manager of Technology Infrastructure Solutions for Avnet Technology Solutions, Americas. "The addition of Riverbed to Avnet’s networking portfolio provides our partners with a critical set of appliances and tools to directly address their customers’ pain points, especially related to wide-area networks. Through our SolutionsPath’ practices, Avnet helps our partners develop the knowledge and skills needed to incorporate these products into comprehensive networking solutions that address business challenges."

"Avnet’s solution-based distribution model provides Riverbed with a significant opportunity to help customers of all sizes improve business performance," said Dave Peranich, senior vice president of worldwide sales, Riverbed Technology. "We selected Avnet to be one of our North American distribution channels because of their proven expertise in providing partners with the critical market knowledge and sales skills to help customers understand how business challenges can be solved through market-leading technologies, such as those from Riverbed."

In particular, Avnet’s recently launched NetworkPath’ enables Avnet partners to quickly gain and expand on their industry-specific expertise through a variety of tools and resources.

These include:

• NetworkPath University – a comprehensive training curriculum to accelerate sales growth,
• NetworkPath Assessment Services – in-depth analyses of end-users’ network environments that assist partners in designing solutions to meet their customers’ business challenges, and
• SolutionsPath’ Playbooks – online sales toolkits.

NetworkPath also can be used in conjunction with other Avnet technology and vertical market practices to further hone partners’ skills and expand their expertise.