“Finding the right allies, building and maintaining the right technology relationships, and delivering high value integrated solutions are critical components to success in the current business communications marketplace and to extending Mitel’s offering,” said Ron Wellard, executive vice president, product development at Mitel. “MSA creates a rich ecosystem of suppliers to add value to all of Mitel’s core product platforms for the benefit of authorizedPARTNERs and end customers, and Mitel by creating innovative complementary products and services that differentiate our solutions.”
The MSA program provides three membership levels for participating third-party vendors, developers, and authorizedPARTNERs – Developer, Preferred and Gold Preferred membership – each having a distinctive set of benefits. The program includes a comprehensive suite of tools and services, including:
• Developer Tools - Application and Programming Interfaces (API), protocols, lab systems, toolkits and documentation, to enable rapid development and integration of products with the range of Mitel communications platforms and desktop products.
• Developer Support – Centralized access with incident tracking, to maximize the value of APIs and speed development.
• Access to Interoperability Test Resources and Certification – To lower the cost-of-entry and speed access to the Mitel channel, improve third-party product quality, and encourage customer confidence in third-party product offerings.
• Technical and Market Intelligence - On Mitel’s product / solution portfolio and the industry segments the company serves.
• Marketing Support – Via the Mitel Global Solutions Catalog (GSC), other web content, and regular communications to advertise available products and services to Mitel’s authorizedPARTNERs and end-customers.
• Return On Investment – Resellers investing more substantially in the Mitel authorizedPARTNERs will reap better rewards through MSA than those that meet minimum requirements. Commitment to the Mitel authorizedPARTNERs will be apparent in terms of product certification levels, program levels, and pre-sales support tools published within the GSC.
“MSA enables us to strengthen our position as a market leader in the voice and data communications industry, through building of alliances with those companies who share and complement our market vision and can help us implement it rapidly and successfully,”
The clearly articulated MSA program structure, with corresponding features, benefits, and benchmarks, also provides a roadmap for Mitel’s third-party vendor and authorizedPARTNERs to see how they can grow and increase their channel penetration and business success with Mitel over time.
Vendors within the former Mitel MiSN and Inter-Tel’s ISA programs who have developed solutions compatible with the companies’ products will now see a broader opportunity to extend their value proposition and work with the authorizedPARTNER community.
With a multitude of potential companion solutions crowding the marketplace, the MSA program helps Mitel customers and authorizedPARTNERs make good choices by doing the necessary research, identification, qualification, development and test support, and business relationship development of third-party vendors and their solutions. This vetted portfolio of qualified options is delivered to channel vendors and customers through the centralized and searchable Mitel Global Solutions Catalog.
By joining MSA, members gain access to Mitel development tools, support, test resources, and marketing channels needed to deliver quality-integrated solutions to Mitel customers.
More information on the MSA program structure, with corresponding features, benefits, and benchmarks, can be obtained at http://www.mitel.com/
About Mitel
Mitel delivers flexibility and simplicity in smart unified communications solutions and applications for organizations of all sizes. Combined with a full range of managed services that include voice and data network design and traffic provisioning, custom application development, and attractive financing options, Mitel is reinventing how successful organizations gain competitive advantage by easily collaborating and communicating over distance and time with customers, colleagues and partners. Mitel’s (http://www.mitel.com) US headquarters are in Phoenix, AZ. Global headquarters are in Ottawa, Canada, with offices, partners and resellers worldwide.