Chris Durnan, managing director of Peapod, said Microsoft needed more security-focused gold partners to meet its increased attention to security.

Microsoft needs more partners specialized in security now that the company has turned itself around from being seen as an insecure vendor to a secure one, he added. Everything Microsoft does goes through more rigorous security processes.

He claimed Microsoft’s ISA firewall product could only be fully realized if a customer had the skills at hand to harness it fully and by making more security resellers gold partners it was recognizing the need to give customers access to the right level of support.

For more information: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/05/15/1649880.htm