Zebra Technologies has announced the new PartnerConnect Alliance Track recognising expertise and influence while enabling greater collaboration with complementary, non-reselling partners.

Zebra’s Alliance Track, which runs alongside the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) track within the complementary partners category, is a strategic component of the award-winning PartnerConnect programme.

The new Alliance Track acknowledges the global influence of independent hardware vendors (IHVs), system integrators (SIs), consultants, and technology alliance partners. The combination of the growing complexity of enterprise and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions with evolving Software as a Service (SaaS) and Device as a Service (DaaS) business models has placed greater emphasis on partners influencing the components of the total solution.

A wide variety of benefits will be available to Alliance Track members, including demo kits, marketing development funds and, specifically for IHVs, the opportunity for their hardware products to achieve Zebra Compatible or Zebra Validated accreditation.

“Zebra’s new Alliance Track recognises the value and contribution our partners play in meeting the needs of our mutual customers – from consulting and modelling to designing enterprise solutions that give a performance edge to the front line of business,” says Bill Cate, vice-president: global channel strategy at Zebra Technologies. “With the new Alliance Track, we can better enable and facilitate collaboration between Zebra, our community of resellers and ISVs along with the wider ecosystem of complementary partners.”

The PartnerConnect Alliance Track is comprised of three tiers – Registered, Select and Premier. Progression within the programme depends on the partner’s influence pipeline captured through Zebra’s existing “Influence Registration” process used successfully today by hundreds of ISV partners.

The new Premier Alliance Partner tier will be reserved exclusively for Zebra’s global strategic alliances, with stringent requirements that demonstrate global scale and reach.