Riverbed Community aims to share expertise

Ecosystems and collaboration are the name of the game in the channel and Riverbed is looking to enhance that process with a forum for partners, customers and its own experts to discuss issues.

The firm has cut the ribbon on the Riverbed Community, which will give partners and consultants the chance to offer their views on industry issues and well as sharing their own insights into topics around network performance and security.

To support the launch, the vendor has also unveiled a Riverbed Ambassador Programme, which is invitation-only to those that are recognised for technology expertise and thought leadership. Those invited to join the scheme will gain access to a number of rewards, ranging from getting demo kit, training and the chance to join Riverbed Community podcasts as a special guest.

Ambassadors will be able to post a wide variety of content, including video, podcasts and blog posts, as well as getting involved with technical discussions. Those debates will centre around the vendor’s four main areas of focus: visibility, WAN, optimisation application acceleration and SD-WAN.

“The industry needs forums built in the spirit of collaboration for all IT professionals and Riverbed Community will serve as an industry resource for all things visibility, performance and security for networks, applications and end-users, as well as hot topics such as cyber security, cloud and SaaS adoption and acceleration and hybrid work-from-home models,” said Brandon Carroll, head technical evangelist at Riverbed.

“Our Ambassador Programme will give recognised industry experts a platform to lead discussions and share their expertise, while enabling others to grow in knowledge and industry stature as well. We are actively recruiting well-known industry experts and welcome nominations and applications from those in the community. Collaboration is paramount to us, and Riverbed Community will bring people together to learn, grow and build relationships.”

Riverbed hopes the Community will be able to share and increase the levels of expertise of those that get involved and is encouraging the channel to sign up, with it being open to all, with no prerequisites to join.  

Communities are becoming more popular across the industry, often being created to improve the focus of debate and support for partners and customers.

Last month, community platform player Tribe attracted $7.5m from global investors that were keen to back the firm’s plans to increase the number of customers taking a collaborative approach to problem-solving and market issue awareness.

Tribe has experienced 400% year-on-year growth in customers as more firms from SaaS and technology sectors adopt a community-based engagement approach for their customers.

“We believe any business should be able to build something similar to Facebook, LinkedIn or Clubhouse for their brand in a few clicks,” said Siavash Mahmoudian, co-founder and CEO of Tribe. “Building an online community is less about technology and more about creating a network and sense of belonging.”