Today we launch the Acquia Partner program with fourteen partners ranging from sole proprietorships to venture-backed firms. I'm excited by the diversity of partners in the program; partnering with different sizes and types of firms will help our customers find the match that maximizes their success. We've been able to enlist parters from Israel, the UK, the US, and Canada, with applications pending from other countries in Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Working with an Acquia partner is an extension of the customer experience. We pre-screen our partners to assure that our customers get the same passion for quality, ethical dealing, and innovation that they get from Acquia. In the screening process we engage with the partner and their customers to understand their capabilities and delivery experience. There's no other way to have confidence that we can make the right matches between our customers and our partners.

Beyond enabling the best matches between client and vendor, we wanted to design a program that serves the myriad businesses in the Drupal community—not just the largest firms with the most to invest in the relationship. Drupal succeeds due to the hundreds of contributors to Drupal, and many of these contributors work independently or in small contract firms. Acquia wants to support all of their efforts by driving business to them and supporting their sales and marketing efforts.

One of the key elements of the program for Acquia and our partners is the principle of a meaningful commitment to each other. Alliance programs often devolve into marketing exercises without continued involvement across each partner organization. Acquia is deliberately limiting the number of partners in the program to assure that we can serve the partners we have, growing it only as we have business and staff to support a larger ecosystem. We've selected partners that will show the same commitment to us and to our customers that we show to them.

Another key principle of the program is that the customer comes first. We hope that what's best for the customer is always best for the partnership, but in the event of conflict we expect our partners to work for their clients first. Acquia will also look out for the best interests of our customers, but we'll make sure that when issues arise between a customer and a partner we'll do all we can to resolve them for both parties.

To learn more about the program, take a look at our partner pages and read what some of our first partners are saying. If you're working for a Drupal services firm and are interested in becoming an Acquia Partner, you can fill out an application to get he process started.