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14 Jul 2006
Security software and appliance vendor St Bernard is gearing up for a period of intense growth and is planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise extra funds.
John Jones, chief executive of St Bernard, told CRN it has about 8,000 customers worldwide, but intends to grow that figure to 30,000.
“We are in the process of completing our IPO,” he said. “Obviously that will allow us to raise cash, but it will also help us accelerate three key areas: more products, expansion of our US channel and also the expansion of our European channel.”
Jones admitted the vendor had not always got its indirect strategy right in the past. However, St Bernard recently launched its Pro-Partner Programme in Europe to win back channel confidence.
“We have been in Europe for about six years and didn’t do a very good job because we weren’t an attractive vendor to the channel,” he said. “We realised we had to talk to the channel and find out how to regain their trust, so we developed Pro-Partner.”
He added that the Pro-Partner Programme has been designed to protect channel profit, offering deal registration and lead-generation activities as two key benefits.
Alan Reid, managing director of distributor Sentryst, said: “Like many US companies in Europe, St Bernard had a different view of the channel. It did some direct deals, some single tier and some two-tier. However, since it cleaned up its channel strategy, there is an opportunity for us and our VARs to make good margin on the back of its products.”
sara_yirrell@vnu.co.uk
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