I read an interesting article on the benefits of Partnerships in Dynamic Business Online.
Here is the link.
My experience with cultivating partnerships for both AVG and Carbonite are that having a relationship with a large institutions eg a bank is great because it potentially gives you big exposure to such a large data base but it doesn't necessarily result in any sales.
The partnerships that really work are those with parties that are going to market and sell the product for you.
Although I chase both (its always great to tell a client that you have so and so bank "offering AVG"), my experience to date tells me to focus on developing an offer that attracts parties to market Carbonite and AVG on our behalf eg ISPs either via a reseller or affiliate style relationship where they are incentivised to sell.
You really need them to be active in their promotion for it to be effective (from a sales perspective). Just being another offer in a list of offers somewhere on someone's website doesn't generate much activity unless you are a well known brand eg Telstra/Optus/DELL
As an example we have AVG listed within the AMEX Small Business Member
Benefits Program offering all members a special discount if they buy online. You can count the amount of traffic we have received from this campaign on one hand.
Thoughts?
Partnerships 
