Bell leads eSoft’s first charge into UK territory

Internet security and content management vendor eSoft has made its first official foray into the UK market by signing Bell Microproducts as its inaugural distributor.

The vendor already works with Bell in the US and has extended the partnership to cover a pan-European agreement. The deal will see Bell supply its European reseller base with eSoft’s flagship InstaGate integrated security gateway and ThreatWall content security gateway product sets.

Speaking to CRN, Paul Darby, western EMEA channel manager at eSoft, said: “We are promoting and investing quite heavily in Europe to grow our channel. Because Bell works with us in the US, it already has the knowledge of our products and the company.”

Darby added that the vendor, which counts SonicWall, WatchGuard, Fortinet and Astaro as some of its biggest competitors, will not be recruiting vast numbers of partners.

“We already have a bank of resellers that we work with in the region and we want to grow that to a decent number, maybe 50 or so,” he said. “We would rather work with 50 good partners than hundreds of less committed partners.”

Initially, all partners will be recruited on a similar level, but as the vendor’s European strategy matures, it will look at the possibility of adding different levels, Darby said.

The vendor is also working closely with Bell with regards to VAR training and is in the process of setting up technical support and certification capabilities within the EMEA region, Darby added.

Duncan Hume, security divisional manager at Bell in the UK, said: “We want to replicate and complement the activities of the Bell US group across the European region. The relationship in the US was working so well, so eSoft asked us to also cover the UK and Europe.”

Hume added that eSoft was a “keen and hungry” vendor that wants to work with resellers and sell through the channel.

“The market place is crowded in the UK, but there is still going to be a lot of consolidation,” he said. “And if we get with the right vendor in the early stages of that consolidation, then the relationship will bear fruit.”

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