Q2 FY17 NextWave Huddle: Top 5 Takeaways

If you missed the Q2 NextWave Huddle, our quarterly partner webcast, I encourage you to watch the full replay and review the presentation.

When analyzing our performance in a given quarter, I look at three key indicators: business momentum, customer momentum and channel momentum. In Q1 FY17, together with you, our partners, we delivered exceptional results in all three areas:

• Business Momentum: We achieved 34% year-over-year revenue and 33% year-over-year billings growth.
• Customer Momentum: We added more than 1,500 new customers and ended the quarter with more than 35,500 customers worldwide, including more than 600 Traps customers and more than 2,000 VM-Series customers.
• Channel Momentum: We had more than 250 partners grow more than 100% year-over-year; partners led more than 2,000 Security Lifecycle Reviews (risk assessments); and partners achieved more than 4,000 individual certifications up 37% year over year.

Together we have achieved amazing results, but we are far from done, which is why I want to encourage you to take the time to participate in our 2017 Global Partner Satisfaction Survey. The survey is set to close on December 15, 2016 and takes 15 minutes to complete. If you haven’t received an email about participating in our annual survey, please contact us at NextWave@PaloAltoNetworks.com, and we will send you an invite.

Top 5 Takeaways

In FY17 we remain committed to listening, learning and evolving to become your most strategic partner. With this in mind, here are my top five takeaways from the Q2 FY17 NextWave Huddle:

1. Traps: Transforming the endpoint market represents a massive opportunity, and our channel momentum for Traps has been on an impressive roll of late. If you aren’t already, you should consider becoming a NextWave Traps Specialized partner.

Here are a few recent Traps highlights:

• December 2016: CRN announced its Product of the Year winners and Traps swept the Endpoint Security category.
• November 2016: We changed our Traps pricing, aligning our server pricing with our workstation pricing.
• October 2016: We boosted our deal registration discounts for our more than 75 Traps Specialized partners around the world.

2. Securing the Cloud: Not only do we have the offering (VM-Series), we also have the key cloud partnerships with the likes of AWS, Microsoft Azure and VMware to capitalize on this rapidly growing market.

To help accelerate partner development of an AWS-based cloud security practice, we recently created this partner learning guide.

3. Commercial Bundle Promotion: For a limited time, we are running a global bundle promotion. These bundles are fixed, available in 1-, 3- and 5-year purchasing terms, and heavily discounted to meet the price-sensitive needs of our global commercial customers. Please check with your channel business manager or distributor for local details.

4. 2017 Cybersecurity Predictions: Understanding the threat landscape and what challenges our customer’s will face in the coming year is a huge competitive advantage, as this knowledge can help secure new opportunities. To help you in this area, we have introduced a 2017 Cybersecurity Predictions blog series and created this infographic you can share with customers.

5. Thinking Beyond the Point: This is our channel strategy for helping you, our partners, think beyond point product sales and transform yourselves into next-generation security innovators, experts at enhancing the Next-Generation Security Platform.

To help your pre-sales systems engineers better understand what it takes to become a next-generation security innovator, we have created the step-by-step Partner SE Lifecycle guide.

2016 has proven to be another banner year. On behalf of the entire Palo Alto Networks team, I’d like to thank you for being a valued partner. We wouldn’t be where we are today, nor could we get where we want to go, without you.

I hope you get a chance over the holiday season to relax and spend some quality time with friends and family. Here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous 2017.