Astaro to push into SME market after sales boom

With booming sales, Astaro needed another distribution partner

Bullish unified threat management (UTM) vendor Astaro is confident it can double its reseller base to 100 by January, after appointing Arc Technology as its third UK distributor.

Astaro claims to have enjoyed solid success in the enterprise sector through distributors Northamber and Softek, but has brought Arc on board to aid its push into the SME market.

Shameem Ibrahim, UK sales director at Astaro, said: “We did a telemarketing campaign recently and generated 21 leads in a week, but there is no one to give them to. We need more assistance and Arc has resellers throughout the country.”

The global UTM market boomed by 28 per cent year on year in quarter one, according to recent figures from IDC, but Astaro claims to be enjoying 60 per cent sales growth.

“Two years ago, UTM was a buzzword used by the channel, but customers didn’t know what it meant. Now customers are asking for UTM,” Ibrahim claimed.

Stuart Clark, security division product manager at Arc, said his goal is to be Astaro’s top distributor within 12 months.

“We wanted to work with a best-of-breed vendor without a great deal of exposure in the UK. Astaro came out top in terms of implementation, configuration and management.”

However, Scott Cattaneo, commercial manager at Astaro reseller Software Box, warned over-recruitment could hit reseller margins.

But he added: “Recruiting a third distributor is probably wise, as long as Astaro guards existing partners.”