I was pointed to an article over on ChannelWeb about Symantec moving away from a partner channel and focusing more on direct sales to their customers. According to the article:

… Symantec is making moves to take its largest 900 customers from partners and hand them over to its direct sales team and take over subscription renewals for SMB customers.

Frankly it doesn’t surprise me that Symantec would risk relationships with their partners. I’ve felt for a long time now that Symantec simply survives on their name and the fact that Symantec/Norton is synonymous with Antivirus protection. They probably feel that a lot of customers possibly directly ask for Symantec products by name and by cutting out their partner channel they can probably pocket an additional 10% or more.

Really I would think that this shows more of a sign that the computer service industry is becoming more and more a commodity service with each passing day. Really I see this as a reason to work harder, differentiate myself more, and simply help customers to see how the quality of service we provide can never become a commodity.

Add to that the fact that I’ve forged strong relationships with companies like Calyptix and Hostmysite, both of whom work hard to please their partners and present the best possible products and services on the market. In the end though I’m curious to see how many of these long term Symantec partners defect to another product, as most all of them I’ve met simply sold Symantec because it was what everyone else was selling. But where will they turn when that well dries up?