Supporting our Partners and Customers Through Change

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic thus far, it’s that we’re all in this together. Our F5 channel community has remained strong, and it is wonderful to hear the stories from around the world on how we are partnering to help one another through this unprecedented time. Our team is deeply committed to supporting our partners, and it is wonderful to see that those efforts recognized in the market.

This year, eight F5ers were named to CRN’s Women of the Channel for their leadership, vision, and dedication to the IT channel.

I’m very proud to share this distinction with my colleagues:

• Barbara Abboud, Director of Channel Sales
• Kelly Curnow, Director of Partner Development and Experiences
• Tania McIntosh, Director of Global Channel Programs
• Maggie Miller, Global Partner Communications Manager
• Stephanie Nalick, Director of Channel Sales
• Erin Oettle, Sr. Program Manager, Americas
• Jennifer Ream, Partner Development and Readiness

I’m also honored to be named to the CRN Power 100 List.

Through the pandemic and beyond, this accomplished group of women remains committed to supporting our partners and driving the success of our partner program, Unity+.

Supporting the Channel through COVID-19

As a customer-obsessed organization, we rely on our partners to help our joint customers solve complex challenges. This is especially the case as our customers take on problems they have never before needed to contemplate, let alone mobilize against quickly. Our customers truly need our collective help more than ever.

As we begin to grapple with the fact that our rebound will not happen as quickly as we’d all like, we are coming up with innovative ways to keep businesses moving forward. We are offering new tools and resources for our partner community to help solve customer challenges with remote access and security, including:

Extended Upgrades

We’re offering extended upgrades and trial licenses to our partners and customers around Access Policy Manager, NGINX, F5 Cloud Services, and Silverline. Our solutions are available in a variety of consumption models and platforms. For more information, please visit f5.com.

Free Software and Services

We want to give back to healthcare, nonprofit, and educational organizations that are going above and beyond to keep us safe during this crisis. We are offering free software and services to those organizations to keep them safe from security and technology challenges so they can focus on what they do best. Learn more and contact F5 for details.

Educational Resources

We have also launched a series of educational webinars around remote access, security, and best practices. These webinars are available on-demand, and the series continues with new topics and tips to help our partners and customers work smarter.

Changing Certification Requirements

We want our partners and customers to be able to focus on their health and families during this pandemic, which is why if you’re unable to renew your or your team’s certifications at this time, please know that you will not lose certification as a result of these extraordinary events.

There are even more resources available on f5.com to help partners and customers stay connected and protected in the face of this unprecedented disruption.

Focus on the future

Our partners have been and will continue to be integral to our success. We are all in this together, and because of that partnership, we will come out of this crisis stronger.

Stay Strong, Stay Healthy!

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Lisa Citron is VP of Worldwide Channel Sales at F5.