Network access control (NAC) vendor ForeScout has appointed Cohort Technologies as its first UK distributor after judging that market demand is sufficient to move to a two-tier channel model.
ForeScout is the fourth vendor to sign with Cohort since it was launched on 1 March (CRN, 5 March).
The US-based vendor has recruited two resellers, Axial Systems and Convergent Network Solutions, since touching down in the UK last year, and is now aiming to rapidly scale up its channel.
Gord Boyce, global vice-president of sales and marketing at ForeScout, told CRN: “We believe NAC will go mainstream in 2007, so we need a much broader footprint and more feet on the street.”
Grahame Smee, managing director of Cohort, told CRN that he will soon kick off a lead generation programme for prospective partners and would help ForeScout generate brand awareness by launching an end-user exposure campaign.
“We need to ensure that every opportunity in the Fortune 500 or Times 200 space is being addressed by a reseller,” he said.
“I’ve been involved in the NAC market for a couple of years and the take-up has been relatively slow. 2007 will be the year it translates into real-life deployments. We had to decide who was best in terms of ease of deployment and ForeScout ticked all the right boxes.”
Paul Spencer, managing director at Axial Systems, told CRN: “We have made a significant investment in ForeScout in terms of training and demo equipment, so I think we have all we need to be self-sufficient. However, it could be that Cohort has some useful additional resources that we could use.”
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