Jonathan Berger knows the partner side. That is shaping his SonicWall channel plan.

Humble is the word I kept coming back to after talking with Jonathan Berger, SonicWall's new Global Channel Chief. You don't often meet someone who has done so much and wears it so lightly. When I congratulated him on the new role, his first move was to wave it off: "Thank you for making me feel more important than I am."

His resume says otherwise: Engineer, founder, CEO, CMO, and now channel chief at SonicWall. That kind of career trajectory gives you a view most channel leaders don't usually get: the insides of how a security company actually operates, how partners actually make money, and where the two sides stop understanding each other.

What makes him truly stand out is that he knows the partner side in a way that one only gets if one has experienced it. Berger spent years at BlueAlly, selling SonicWall and many other vendors, managing pricing rules, certification hoops, and program complexities that partners deal with every day. Sitting in those rooms, feeling the friction, he knows all the partner painpoints. At one point, Berger told me he used to ask vendors, half-jokingly, why they even had a website when customers could not buy anything there. His explanation is: the partner is where the money changes hands, so vendors only succeed when their partners do.

Now sitting on the other side of the table as SonicWall's senior vice president of global channels and alliances, he hasn't forgotten what it felt like when a vendor changed direction and left its partners scrambling to keep up. Now he plans to: simplify the partner experience, coach partners through change, and make sure SonicWall's move beyond firewalls doesn't leave its channel behind. He is making a simple point: SonicWall only succeeds when its partners do.

ChannelE2E: You started as an engineer, moved into CEO roles, built your own company, moved to the U.S. in 2015, and later went from marketing to leading global channels at SonicWall. Talk to me about that journey and what attracted you to SonicWall.

Jonathan Berger: First of all, thank you for the warm welcome and for making me feel more important than I am. I am very grateful to be at SonicWall and grateful to be where I am.

I was always a commercially minded engineer. I suppose I was really an accountant in engineering clothing because business was in the family, and I always knew I would become a businessperson. But I saw the value in understanding how things work, not only how business works. Engineering gave me a curiosity about the mechanics of security, technology, and the internet. I am proud of the C-suite titles, but I am more proud of being able to integrate into the United States and find success here, at least in my own small way.

As for SonicWall, I have been part of the SonicWall ecosystem since 2016, when I joined Virtual Graffiti. I think it grew to become SonicWall’s largest reseller, or one of its largest, certainly in North America. SonicWall was a material part of the Virtual Graffiti and BlueAlly business.

In my own world, I have an entrepreneurial side and a technical side, and SonicWall speaks to both. It is a very technical, specialized business with significant business potential. SonicWall is going through a transformation, as all companies are, because of AI and the way the world is moving forward. I thought I would fit in well and could add something through deep technical expertise and the entrepreneurial side of helping SonicWall reinvent itself.

SonicWall has a historical firewall business. The company is about 31 years old and has always been a viable business. It also has access points, switches, email security and other products, but if you asked someone on the street, they would probably call it a firewall company. SonicWall is trying to become more than that, as every cybersecurity company is.

ChannelE2E: You came from BlueAlly, one of SonicWall’s major partners, and have built and scaled a cybersecurity-focused VAR, MSP, and MSSP. Based on that experience, where do you see the biggest friction between vendors and their partners?

Jonathan Berger: I think the first friction point is mindset. I sometimes had to remind vendors that they only make money when I make money as a partner. On their own, they cannot be successful without a partner.

A vendor may want to pressure a partner on price, channel rules, inventory, the distributor it must buy from, certifications, and how hard those certifications are to obtain. But we are on the same team. The vendor only makes money when the partner makes money.

I used to ask vendors, somewhat facetiously, why they had a website. My point was that the partner needs the website, not the vendor, because people can only buy the product from the partner. Someone can go to SonicWall.com or Cisco.com, but they cannot buy anything there. The vendor makes money only when the customer talks to a partner that is enabled, trained, and certified and has access to distribution, pricing and the rest of the program. Then both parties win.

The first friction point is an understanding of the industry and the rules of the game. SonicWall, Cisco, Fortinet or any other vendor succeeds when the partner succeeds. That sounds obvious, but from the partner side, it often does not feel obvious.

Some certification requirements are very onerous. Some requirements around distribution are overly restrictive. A vendor may tell a partner it has to nominate a distributor, and the partner asks why. Cash flow and payment terms matter, but some of those rules can feel draconian.

The first issue is the general mindset that the partner needs to make money and operate a viable business.

I used to sit in training sessions where every vendor came in and said it had the best firewall. One week it was Fortinet, the next week it was Sophos. Fair enough. Every company believes its own story.

Virtual Graffiti and BlueAlly sold products from about 500 partners, with perhaps 20 particularly strong cybersecurity vendors. There had to be other reasons to work with a vendor beyond the product. We would work with a company if the relationship was simple, it was easy to do business with, we understood the pricing, incentives, and deal registration, and distribution worked.

You have to treat people the way you want to be treated. I am not sure the channel always fully understands that. As a partner, I need to pay salaries and run a healthy business. I need customers to trust me as the partner who recommended the right solution, design, technology, and brand. I also have to make money. It is a commercial relationship.

Sometimes those things do not align. Much of the friction comes down to mindset. It has to be a genuine partnership and a genuine win-win. When it is not, it creates tension.

ChannelE2E: What are the first things you want to simplify or improve at SonicWall? Is there a partner friction point you want to address immediately?

Jonathan Berger: In full transparency, SonicWall was the easiest partner to work with in the Virtual Graffiti and BlueAlly business. Every time we onboarded a seller, they would usually learn and sell SonicWall first because the licensing and discounting were simple.

Some other vendors have price lists with tens of thousands of SKUs, and it is difficult to determine which series, term, upgrade or license applies. SonicWall was already understood to be one of the simplest vendors to work with and had a straightforward partner program.

The first thing I want to work on is how to tell a broader story, because the SonicWall story is not only a firewall story. It is a security platform story.

We have DMRs, VARs, MSPs, and MSSPs. When people say “partners,” it is a broad generalization. These partners have different routes to market, ways of competing, and ways of making money.

My focus is on finding a compelling way to tell SonicWall’s platform story, which is much broader than firewalls, without alienating existing partners.

I saw something similar happen during the pandemic when many cybersecurity vendors moved into MDR, XDR, and EDR. The message became, “We are not selling boxes. We want monthly recurring revenue.” That may be where the vendor wants to go, but the partner is still running its existing business.

If a vendor moves in a new direction without bringing the partner along, the partner may not understand EDR, MDR, XDR, or endpoint security. The vendor has to bring the partner on the journey.

My strategy is to communicate the platform business model in a way that works for the different partner models. I do not want a VAR to think SonicWall is moving on without it, or an MSP to feel it no longer understands SonicWall.

That is how I felt when some vendors started saying they no longer wanted to sell boxes and only wanted to sell seats per month. I thought, “Wait, we do not work like that. Help me understand. You are leaving me behind.”

We need to tell the platform story in a way that brings every business model along, continues the partner’s success and allows the partner to move with us.

This is a “with” strategy. It cannot be, “We are changing, and if you cannot change fast enough, we will change without you.”

There were moments during the pandemic when I listened to vendors and thought, “I do not understand you anymore. You changed too fast, you changed without me, and you did not bring me into the story. I have been your loyal partner, and I do not even know what you are talking about because we are not a monthly recurring revenue business.”

There is also a lot of detail around business coaching. Some partners cannot change quickly. Every business has inertia, existing investments, and time constraints. We need to coach partners through the change.

It cannot be a vendor talking to partners and saying, “We are changing, and here is a three-month roadmap.” It has to be, “We are changing, here is why, here is the business model, and here is how we will help you understand it and build the skills.”

As channel chief, I want partners in the channel. I value their partnership. The last thing I want to do is lose partners because of the future strategy of the business. That also extends into partner communications and marketing. We cannot do one thing and say something else. I have seen vendors say they are moving entirely to monthly recurring revenue while they continue selling boxes. That creates confusion.

ChannelE2E: How will you measure whether the partner program is working? What benchmarks will show you what is working and what needs to change?

Jonathan Berger: There are probably two principal categories of measures. The first is existing partners. I do not want to alienate existing partners or disrupt what already works. Are they growing? Are they successful? Are they engaging with us? Are they loyal to us?

The second category is new partners. If you open an ice cream store, are people walking past and coming in to taste it? I want to attract those passersby: companies considering entering the space and partners selling complementary products, such as HPE’s SMB networking products, that also need a firewall or security solution. Are they coming to SonicWall?

I will measure both existing partners and net-new partners. Net-new partners tell me whether people are taking notice of the changes and whether we have a compelling offer.

I was a CMO before, and people would ask how we achieved certain results. I think that if you have a great product, the marketing takes care of itself. If the product is poor, you can hire the best CMO in the world, but that person will be out of work in six months. You can fool some people some of the time, but you cannot fool everyone all the time.

The product has to be good, and then the marketing follows. That will be reflected in net-new partner acquisition and growth among existing partners.

ChannelE2E: Vendors are expanding their managed security services, which can leave partners wondering whether their suppliers are becoming competitors. Where does SonicWall fit, and where does the partner make money?

Jonathan Berger:  I found that confusing, too, when it was first presented to me around 2022. I thought, “Wait a second. You are doing what I am trying to do, but you are my supplier. Who holds the paper?” In other words, who owns the customer contract and billing relationship? The whole thing was confusing.

The channel has an ecosystem. You have an end customer, a partner, a distributor, and a vendor. There is a structure. It is like buying a Mercedes-Benz. You do not buy it directly from Mercedes-Benz. You buy it from a dealer.

The MSP ecosystem will also find its natural structure, but it is still somewhat confusing.

One place SonicWall may land is as the MSSP to the MSSP, or the SOC behind providers that operate a daytime SOC. Running a real security operations center, even with AI and automation, is still very human-intensive. It has to operate 24/7. It does not work if it runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closes on weekends.

The structure could involve a customer buying from a partner that has an MSSP practice but does not operate an end-to-end, 24/7 SOC. The partner could then send second-tier support or after-hours work to the SonicWall SOC.

That creates a genuinely symbiotic relationship. The customer talks to the partner, the partner works with SonicWall, and everyone has a clear role. That is very different from SonicWall and the partner, both talking directly to the customer and competing for the same relationship.

The plan is not for SonicWall to disintermediate its partners. I found that model confusing when I was on the partner side, so I understand the concern. It can still feel confusing and potentially threatening. If I were the partner, I would not want SonicWall to own the paper with my customer. I would not want the vendor to cut me out.

One thing I have to work on is clarifying what kind of business SonicWall wants. There may be situations where SonicWall is the primary MSSP on record and services the customer directly. But I think the better model is to empower the partner to take on part of the work, part of the billing, and part of the value, with SonicWall serving as the backstop.

ChannelE2E: What should an MSSP trying to scale, or an MSP moving deeper into security, do to move beyond basic managed security?

Jonathan Berger: In general, you cannot be all things to all people. Evaluate the market and choose a vendor that acts like a true partner. That vendor should have the agreements, commissions, and program structure needed to help you succeed. Of course, I would say SonicWall can be that partner.

Choose a company that is easy to do business with and will enable you to be successful. SonicWall has put a lot of effort into enablement. We have made certifications free, while some vendors charge for certifications and make partners climb the tallest tower, cross a bridge of fire, and slay a dragon to earn one.

We have tried to make certification and enablement much easier.

My advice is to choose a partner, engage deeply, and go all in. I would love partners to go all in with SonicWall. I am not asking them to be exclusive, but I do think they should fully commit to a vendor that can offer a broad range of options.

With SonicWall, a partner can sell one-time software licenses and hardware, operate as a traditional reseller, build an MSSP business or combine those models.

SonicWall also has the regional presence, solution engineers, presales support, and post-sales support to carry a partner from its first interaction through long-term success.

ChannelE2E: A year from now, what would make you say your first year leading SonicWall’s global channels was successful?

Jonathan Berger: Some of it will be personal. My definition of success starts with the strength of my relationships across the partner channel. How will I know? Do I have good relationships with partners? No one can really measure that except me.

When I go to an event in London, is it oversubscribed? We have had several events across Europe that were oversubscribed. I was in Latin America last week. Some of the indicators are things other people may not see, but I will know.

I will ask myself: Do I have strong relationships? Do I understand my partners’ businesses? Do they reach out to me and engage with me when they need help?

Engagement is a major signal.

Then there are the things everyone can see. Is the channel growing? Are existing partners still with us, and are they growing? Are we attracting net-new partners?

That is a simple answer, but I can tell from conversations whether someone is engaging with me because I am the channel chief and they feel obligated to talk to me, or whether they trust me enough to say, “We are worried about salaries because the economy is weak. We need more recurring revenue because insurance costs are high.”