According to CRN, Netgear is launching a completely redesigned global partner program called the Netgear Drive Partner Success Program, marking what channel chief Thomas Schwab calls a “bold, new chapter” for the company. The program features a three-tier structure—Ignite, Apex, and Apex MSP—that rewards partners based on training, certification, and service excellence rather than sales volume or revenue. Under CEO CJ Prober and Schwab, who joined in early 2024, the company is specifically targeting small to medium enterprises with this initiative. Existing Netgear partners will transition to the new program by January 1, 2026, with a new partner portal providing technical information and sales resources. The move represents a strategic shift from Netgear’s consumer roots toward establishing itself as a serious enterprise player.
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<h2 id="enterprise-pivot”>The Enterprise Identity Crisis
Here’s the thing about Netgear—they’ve been stuck in this weird middle ground for years. Everyone knows them for consumer routers and home networking gear, but they’ve actually had enterprise-capable products that could compete with the big players. The problem? Their marketing and partner approach never matched their technical capabilities. Schwab basically admitted as much when he said it “wouldn’t make sense to launch a partner program to attach it to a consumer vision.” They’re finally acknowledging what partners like BIAS IT’s Paul Duckett have known all along—Netgear has been one of the industry’s “best-kept secrets.”
Rewarding the Right Things
What’s really interesting here is how they’re structuring the partner program. They’re completely ditching the traditional revenue-based model. No more rewarding partners just for moving boxes. Instead, they’re focusing on certification, training, and most importantly—customer experience. Partners get rewarded for providing what Duckett called the “wraparound experience.” That means not just selling gear and disappearing, but actually supporting customers long-term. In today’s environment where SMEs struggle to attract IT talent and have tight budgets, this approach makes perfect sense. The cost to own and maintain becomes way more important than the initial purchase price.
Why This Might Actually Work
Look, the timing here is pretty smart. Enterprises of all sizes are scrutinizing budgets like never before. The legacy networking players have gotten ridiculously complex and expensive. As Duckett pointed out, if you need “an engineer that’s got five degrees just to be able to log into a device, it suddenly becomes stupidly expensive.” Netgear’s strength has always been simplicity and reliability. Their equipment might not have the flashy enterprise branding, but it works—and it’s way easier to manage. For SMEs dealing with aging networks that can’t scale and limited IT resources, that value proposition is incredibly compelling.
The Long Game
So will this actually transform Netgear into an enterprise powerhouse? It’s going to be an uphill battle against established players like Cisco and Aruba. But they’re playing a different game here. They’re not trying to compete on features or raw performance—they’re competing on total cost of ownership and partner relationships. The fact that they’re giving partners until January 2026 to transition shows they’re thinking long-term. They’re building trust slowly, which is exactly what you need when you’re trying to shed a consumer reputation. If they can consistently deliver on this promise of simplicity, reliability, and partner support, they might just pull off this identity shift. After all, in today’s economic climate, value and trust are becoming more important than brand prestige.
