Fortinet in Norwood Adam agreement
Networking distributor named as vendor's third UK partner
Security appliance vendor Fortinet has completed its distribution shake-up and named voice and data networking distributor Norwood Adam as its third UK partner.
Norwood joins networking specialist Westcon and managed service specialist Fresh Egg as UK distributors supplying the vendor's ASIC-based Fortigate Antivirus Firewall.
Fortinet's distribution channel has seen significant adjustment in a short period, with distributors coming and going. The vendor recently dropped Wick Hill and Ideal after announcing Westcon as a distribution partner in October.
Jonathan Mepstead, regional director UK at Fortinet, said the vendor is expecting increased sales this year.
"To meet the level of demand I expect this year I decided we needed another distributor," he said.
"We are interested in resellers selling into the voice and data market and Westcon gives us access to resellers selling into the corporate sector, while Norwood Adam widens our SME reach."
He said the move will enable Fortinet to develop relationships with resellers that the company has not come across before.
Norwood Adam already sells the Fortigate product as a sub-distributor, and had already discussed a potential direct relationship with the vendor. This was put on hold while the vendor restructured its distribution tier.
Manny Pinon, sales and marketing director at Norwood Adam, said security is a focus area for its partners this year.
Pinon said Fortigate will be part of the distributor's Prism managed network security service offering, which was launched earlier this month.
"We will sell the box alone, with three years' up-front services or as part of the Prism managed service," he said.
Norwood is looking for VARs that are based near lots of SMEs and want to move into security without getting fully skilled up, or those that are interested in selling products and services with recurring revenue, Pinon added.