Zero Networks has moved to a fully channel-first model and
expanded its global partner program, making partners the primary path for delivering identity-driven containment. The shift is tied to a change in customer priorities. Security buyers are no longer focused only on detecting attacks. They want to limit how far an attacker can move once inside the environment. That makes containment an early, measurable outcome and gives partners a service they can deploy without waiting for a full network redesign.
The update to the
Zero to Sixty partner program is structured around delivery speed and margin protection. A new tiering model links performance and investment to higher profitability, while revised discounting and deal-registration are intended to remove pricing friction and preserve partner control of the opportunity. Expanded technical and sales enablement, MDF alignment toward high-engagement partners, and a redesigned partner portal focus on making the program operational rather than promotional. The practical effect is shorter sales cycles, faster deployment, and clearer service packaging for partners building recurring revenue around containment and segmentation.
From incident response to recurring resilience
For MSPs, this changes the shape of the engagement. Instead of stepping in after an alert or running periodic projects, they can anchor the relationship in continuous blast-radius reduction.
Adam Hofeler, VP of Channels at Zero Networks, told ChannelE2E, “The opportunity for MSPs is shifting from reactive detection and cleanup to proactive blast radius reduction, and customers still want a trusted partner to guide them through that shift. That turns it into a recurring resilience service rather than a one-time project. It becomes sticky infrastructure embedded in customer environments and supports higher margin advisory and managed oversight instead of labor-heavy incident response. Even though much of the enforcement is automated, customers still rely on MSPs for architecture guidance, change management, optimization, and communicating resilience outcomes to leadership,” said
That model ties the service to ongoing oversight, reporting, and optimization. It also gives partners a way to attach advisory work and executive-level outcomes to what used to be a technical control.
Engineering out deployment friction
The partner program updates are built around speed and repeatability. New tiering, revised discounting, deal protection, expanded enablement, and a redesigned portal are meant to reduce the amount of custom work required for each customer.
Time to value depends on how quickly partners can move from discovery to enforcement.
“Traditional segmentation requires design workshops, traffic modeling, manual rule building, and months of staged rollout. What is different here: automatic discovery and mapping of east-west traffic, policy generation based on real communication patterns, no inline hardware changes or network redesign, identity-aware enforcement without breaking applications, deployment measured in weeks, not quarters. The complexity is engineered out upfront so partners are not custom-building every environment,” Hofeler said.
A shorter deployment cycle allows partners to standardize onboarding and turn containment into a packaged service rather than a one-off project.
A channel model built around deal protection
The move to 100% channel also affects how enterprise accounts are handled. Partner investment typically follows deal protection and field alignment.
“Being fully channel first means no direct sales competition with partners. We have mandatory deal registration and protection, clear rules of engagement on enterprise accounts, compensation alignment where internal teams are incentivized to work through partners, and transparent pipeline visibility with executive escalation paths. Incentives are structured so success equals partner success. Field alignment and compensation models reinforce that behavior structurally, not just culturally,” Hofeler said.
That structure determines whether partners build a pipeline, create services, and commit technical resources.
Growth across MSPs, global integrators, and distribution extends the delivery model into new regions and customer segments. The common thread is a service that can be deployed quickly, measured in operational terms, and renewed as part of a resilience program. Containment is being positioned as the first step in the security lifecycle rather than a late-stage architecture decision. For partners, that creates an entry point into the environment that stays in place, generates recurring oversight work, and ties security spending to business impact.
