Riverbed Technology, the leader in application performance infrastructure, recognised seven top-performing sub-Saharan African partners during Riverbed® Partner Connect 2016, held in Johannesburg on 20 April. The Riverbed Partner Awards recognise top-performing companies for excellence in delivering on evolving customer needs and driving revenues.

Hanli Wood, Riverbed Channel Sales Manager, says it is noteworthy that Datacentrix, Riverbed’s only Elite partner in sub-Saharan Africa, won three of the seven awards for the second consecutive year, including the award for Partner of the Year. “We recognise their commitment and drive in taking Riverbed’s growing solution portfolio to local markets, to help customers meet changing needs,” says Wood. Another notable winner this year is BT Global Services in South Africa, whose partnership with Riverbed was cemented as recently as last year. “As a new partner, BT won two awards this year, which we find very encouraging,” she says.

The 2016 Partner Award winners for the sub-Sahara region were:

• Sales Person of the Year – Duncan van Jaarsveld, BT Global Services       
• Technical Person of the Year – Durk Potgieter, Datacentrix  
• Premium Partner of the Year – Bytes Technology Group              
• Growth Partner of the Year – BT Global Services                
• Distributor of the Year – Networks Unlimited    
• Partner of the Year – Datacentrix            
• Technical Partner of the Year – Datacentrix         

The awards were presented by Wimpie van Rensburg, Riverbed country manager for sub-Saharan Africa at a well-attended event at Summer Place in Sandton. He noted that Riverbed works closely with a channel ecosystem comprising a network of focused, dedicated and invested partners across the globe; including technology resellers, solution providers, value added distributors, system integrators and outsourcers and service providers.

Wood says the strong turnout at the event is indicative of growing interest in the new direction being taken by Riverbed and its industry partners. “Following Riverbed’s acquisition of SD-WAN specialist Ocedo in January and its increased collaboration with leading vendors such as Microsoft and IBM, we are seeing significant growth in interest in the enhanced solutions we are able to bring to market. Interest in SD-WAN and our Microsoft Azure collaborations is particularly strong in the local market, and through our channel partners, we expect significant growth opportunities in new and broader markets as a result,” she says. “We are focused on supporting our existing channel partners, as they evolve to address the growing need for new subscription models and software-defined networking solutions, which provide superior application performance and business agility for today's hybrid enterprises.”