Sphinx to offer I-Sentral managed services

Move will benefit resellers

Sphinx CST has signed an agreement with ATL Networks to offer the latter's I-Sentral range of managed services as part of its own security offering to resellers.

The agreement includes incentives for resellers such as discounts and plans to lend trained staff to partners.

The ATL managed services range comprises: I-Sentral Guard, a managed firewall security option for large organisations; I-Sentral Guard Lite, a firewall option for small to medium sized enterprises; and I-Sentral Scan, for email security management.

Richard Salmon, professional services manager at Sphinx, said: "We are offering marketing and pre-sales support, and some resellers will be offered someone from our internal sales team to support their teams."

Robin Newbury, director at reseller CSN, said: "It's a good idea because most resellers cannot afford to employ specialists and this will fill the gap until in-house sales people are skilled up."

Sphinx is initially approaching resellers that specialise in security, but Salmon said he believes all resellers should consider it. "A reseller does not need any special resources to sell and support these products. After we have targeted security resellers we will talk to others about it," he explained.

ATL will dedicate full support resources to the channel. "One of the reasons we are partnering with ATL is because, after looking at several companies providing this service, we felt it had the resources to provide 24-hour support for partners," said Salmon.