This article is more than 1 year old

Burton made channel overlord at F5 Networks

This is not about buying into a product, it’s buying into a ‘strategy’

F5 Networks has pulled in channel grey beard Neill Burton to take control of its partner community in the UK, Ireland and, er, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Burton spent eleven years at Computacenter in various senior sales positions before he upped sticks and moved into vendor land with HDS as veep of channels and alliances back in 2012.

His time at the storage firm was cut short last year when HDS decided it needed to reduce costs and placed the man and a few other directors at risk of redundancy.

BMC Software came knocking last August and he ran the indirect sales operation until his latest employer picked up the phone and asked him to take on his third job in 18 months.

Burton is charged with writing the sales strategy and joins F5 at a “very important time for the company”.

Why? “Hybrid cloud enablement and related security issues”, apparently, or so said Myles Bray, regional veep of sales for UK, Ireland and SSA.

“Neill will be key in repositioning F5 to ensure our customers’ needs continue to be met in a market where partners and influencers deliver outcomes using a mixed blend of technologies and services,” he added in a collection of assembled words.

Not to be outdone in the buzzword stakes, Burton claimed that F5’s Synthesis vision (building “comprehensive solutions” to deliver applications) is a “powerful message”.

“Instead of buying into mere product excellence, it means people can buy into a strategy. F5 is a company that has experienced accelerated growth and, I believe, with a next generation partner ecosystem built to bring outsourcers, systems integrators and value-added resellers under the same umbrella, we are well positioned to continue this growth path in the immediate future."

If you haven’t lost the will to live, join us in welcoming Burton to his new role. ®

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