“New Zealand, probably more than anywhere else, is a place of close relationships,” commented Chris Petersen, Open Text’s recently appointed ANZ Manager for Channel Alliances and Partners.  NZ relationships are critical to Open Text in New Zealand, especially since its acquisition of Hummingbird.  Since 1993, the vendor has been dealing with a single channel partner – Wellington based TechTonics.  Petersen’s role has been newly created to support a more on-demand strategy the enterprise software vendor is hoping to strengthen in ANZ.  “We understand that sometimes partners need a bit of love.  Giving people the time, skills and ability to enable them to sell is key,” he explained.Open Text has no plans to bring on more NZ partners at this stage, and aims to provide stronger, more frequent support and enablement to TechTonics, which Petersen describes as a “very well skilled, broad-based partner”.  Steve Harrison, General Manager of Services at TechTonics, reacted positively to the developments at Open Text and told The Channel, “We’ve missed having a dedicated channel person involved.  With the changes after the takeover of Hummingbird, we’ve needed a bit more support”.At least half of TechTonic’s 37 staff work with Open Text in some way.  “Gaining additional expertise is something we look forward to,” said Harrison.  “I think the next three years in this space [document management] will be very exciting.”