After months of planning, internet security vendor SurfControl has announced that its managed services offerings will go through distribution.
SurfControl acquired its managed services capability through the purchase of BlackSpider for £20m last year (CRN Online, 13 July). But BlackSpider operated a strict single-tier channel strategy.
A month after the acquisition, SurfControl appointed InTechnology – now DNS Arrow – as its first full-time UK distributor (CRN, 14 August). It revealed plans to eventually offer the services through its two-tier model.
Speaking to CRN, Harnish Patel, senior vice-president of EMEA at SurfControl, said: “We always said we would push BlackSpider’s services through distribution and we have finally done that. This means our VARs can not only buy our network products, but they can offer customers on-demand services at the same time.”
Patel added that BlackSpider’s former direct resellers were adjusting to the change.
“We have done this over time for a reason,” he said. “Some resellers are fine because it means they can get all their products and services from one provider, but others are going to need time to think about it. We wanted them to be able to get used to the idea and it does make sense for all stages of the supply chain.”
He added that the vendor is seeing increased demand for its managed services.
“We do a lot of business with mid- and lower mid-market customers,” he said. “In particular we are seeing demand from firms with less than 250 employees. However, at the other end of the scale we get a lot of blue-chip customers. Many of these firms don’t see content or email filtering as their core business and would rather outsource this.”
Andrew Beaumont, divisional director for security at DNS Arrow, said: “SurfControl’s managed services have been very well accepted by our channel partners. We are already getting some traction.”
Despite recent claims by rival vendors that SurfControl was diluting the BlackSpider brand (CRN, 26 March), Beaumont was confident that demand for the services will only increase.
“SurfControl has made a tremendous investment in procuring the BlackSpider business and the brand is very strong,” he said. “If anything, demand and awareness will be higher because of SurfControl’s channel and the fact that end-users in general are more open to a managed service proposition.”
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