Emulex Enhances Connect Partner Program

COSTA MESA, Calif., March 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, today announced significant enhancements to its Connect Partner Program™, including a new loyalty program, enhanced reseller training tools, and streamlined deal registration and web enablement. The Connect Partner Program will also be extended to Emulex reseller partners in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in 2013. The Emulex Connect Partner Program arms resellers with the tools, training, and incentives to drive best-of-breed I/O technologies and joint solutions into the channel, enabling the highest-performing data centers across the globe.

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"The next generation of our Connect Partner Program is designed to maximize partner profits and revenues, while helping them bring high-performing Fibre Channel and network convergence solutions to the market, enabling customers' leading-edge applications such as big data, software defined networking, I/O caching and server virtualization deployments worldwide," said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. "We've done this by giving partners faster access to cash incentives, extending some top tier benefits to smaller loyal resellers, and expanding our lead generation efforts for the channel, based on their direct feedback. Additionally, this year, we're extending all of these benefits to our partners in the APAC region."

Emulex's three-tiered partner community, which has been designated for the third straight year as one of CRN Magazine's 5-Star Partner Programs (see accompanying release here), provides partners with the tools, training, support and information required to promote and sell network and storage connectivity solutions. New enhancements and benefits of the Connect Partner Program include:

• New Loyalty Program: This program provides a path for resellers in the lower program tiers to earn limited Platinum-level benefits by displaying consistent purchase behaviors. Examples of these benefits include demonstration and proof of concept equipment, priority lead distribution, and priority access to Market Development Funds (MDF).
• Enhanced Reseller Incentives: Unlike competing partner programs, all Connect Partners, regardless of tier, now receive complete sales cycle incentives, including project registration, deal registration and SPIFs. Emulex also offers the broadest range of Emulex reward SPIFs, including both Emulex-branded and OEM-branded I/O connectivity solutions.
• Lead and Demand Generation: The Connect Partner Program now includes enhanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools, allowing Emulex to provide qualified leads to Connect+ and Platinum tier partners. This is in response to feedback that leads are the top priority for partners' participation in vendor channel programs, according to the CRN Annual Reseller Survey. 
• Enhanced Reseller Training and Sales Tools: The Emulex Connect Partner Program online training now includes content for all Emulex solutions, including LightPulse® 16Gb Fibre Channel (16GFC) Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), OneConnect® Network Acceleration™ (NX) solutions and OneCommand® Vision. Training was the second highest priority for partners' participation in vendor channel programs, based on the CRN Annual Reseller Survey.
• Streamlined Enablement and Administrative Tools: Emulex has rolled out a new Salesforce.com-based portal for streamlined deal registration and SPIF claims, which also reduces administrative cycles for resellers.
• Expansion into APAC: Emulex is expanding the reach of the Connect Partner Program by offering Connect benefits to eligible APAC partners in 2013.  This now provides APAC resellers access to the lucrative deal registration and Connect Rewards SPIF programs as well access to a wide range of training and business development tools.

"The loyalty program was a compelling reason for us to join the Connect Partner Program, in addition to the revenue incentives, lead generation and competitive pricing, which will enable us to maximize our profits," said Gary Johnston, president, IT Partners. "The onboard process for new members is clear and streamlined, and we have been very pleased with interoperability testing, as well as the process to get up-to-speed quickly on the market and key selling points for customers' next-generation data centers."

"The Emulex Connect Partner Program is different than other programs as it provides incentives to all of its partners, no matter what tier they fall into, along with a broad range of rewards and promotions to benefit both partner and end user," said Gordon Esslemont, commercial director of Ultima Business Solutions. "And, with such a broad range of I/O connectivity solutions for our customers, we feel we have the right solution for virtually any customers' deployment needs, from flash to virtualization, to the cloud."

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About Emulex
Emulex, the leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, provides hardware and software solutions for global networks that support enterprise, cloud, government and telecommunications. Emulex's products enable unrivaled end-to-end application visibility, optimization and acceleration. The Company's I/O connectivity offerings, including its line of ultra high-performance Ethernet and Fibre Channel-based connectivity products, have been designed into server and storage solutions from leading OEMs, including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Huawei, IBM, NetApp and Oracle, and can be found in the data centers of nearly all of the Fortune 1000. Emulex's monitoring and management solutions, including its portfolio of network visibility and recording products, provide organizations with complete network performance management at speeds up to 100Gb Ethernet. Emulex is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. For more information about Emulex (NYSE:ELX) please visit http://www.Emulex.com.

"Safe Harbor" Statement

"Safe Harbor'' Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above, contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or changes to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances. We wish to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors include the possibility that we may not promptly complete the acquisition of Endace, may not obtain 100 percent ownership of Endace, may not realize the anticipated benefits from the acquisition of Endace on a timely basis or at all, and may be unable to integrate the technology, operations and personnel of Endace into our existing operations in a timely and efficient manner.  In addition, intellectual property claims, with or without merit, that could result in costly litigation, cause product shipment delays, require us to indemnify customers, or require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements, which may or may not be available. Furthermore, we have in the past obtained, and may be required in the future to obtain, licenses of technology owned by other parties. We cannot be certain that the necessary licenses will be available or that they can be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. If we were to fail to obtain such royalty or licensing agreements in a timely manner and on reasonable terms, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Ongoing lawsuits, such as the action brought by Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom), present inherent risks, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations. Such potential risks include continuing expenses of litigation, risk of loss of patent rights, risk of monetary damages, risk of injunction against the sale of products incorporating the technology in question, counterclaims, attorneys' fees, incremental costs associated with product or component redesigns, and diversion of management's attention from other business matters. With respect to the continuing Broadcom litigation, such potential risks also include the adequacy of any sunset period to make design changes, the ability to implement any design changes, the availability of customer resources to complete any re-qualification or re-testing that may be needed, the ability to maintain favorable working relationships with Emulex suppliers of serializer/deserializer (SerDes) modules, and the ability to obtain a settlement which does not put us at a competitive disadvantage. In addition, the fact that the economy generally, and the technology and storage market segments specifically, have been in a state of uncertainty makes it difficult to determine if past experience is a good guide to the future and makes it impossible to determine if markets will grow or shrink in the short term. Continued weakness in domestic and worldwide macro-economic conditions, related disruptions in world credit and equity markets, and the resulting economic uncertainty for our customers, as well as the storage and converged networking market as a whole, has and could continue to adversely affect our revenues and results of operations. As a result of these uncertainties, we are unable to predict our future results with any accuracy. Other factors affecting these forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the following: faster than anticipated declines in the storage networking market, slower than expected growth of the converged networking market or the failure of our Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers to successfully incorporate our products into their systems; our dependence on a limited number of customers and the effects of the loss of, decrease in or delays of orders by any such customers, or the failure of such customers to make timely payments; the emergence of new or stronger competitors as a result of consolidation movements in the market; the timing and market acceptance of our products or our OEM customers' new or enhanced products; costs associated with entry into new areas of the server and storage technology markets; the variability in the level of our backlog and the variable and seasonal procurement patterns of our customers; any inadequacy of our intellectual property protection and the costs of actual or potential third-party claims of infringement and any related indemnity obligations or adverse judgments; the effect of any actual or potential unsolicited offers to acquire us; proxy contests or the activities of activist investors; impairment charges, including but not limited to goodwill and intangible assets; changes in tax rates or legislation; the effects of acquisitions; the effects of terrorist activities, natural disasters, and any resulting disruption in our supply chain or customer purchasing patterns or any other resulting economic or political instability; the highly competitive nature of the markets for our products as well as pricing pressures that may result from such competitive conditions; the effects of changes in our business model to separately charge for software; the effect of rapid migration of customers towards newer, lower cost product platforms; possible transitions from board or box level to application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) solutions for selected applications; a shift in unit product mix from higher-end to lower-end or mezzanine card products; a faster than anticipated decrease in the average unit selling prices or an increase in the manufactured cost of our products; delays in product development; our reliance on third-party suppliers and subcontractors for components and assembly; our ability to attract and retain key technical personnel; our ability to benefit from our research and development activities; our dependence on international sales and internationally produced products; changes in accounting standards; and any resulting regulatory changes on our business. These and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and are discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, under the caption "Risk Factors."

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SOURCE Emulex Corporation