Fortinet binds deal with Fresh Egg

Distributor to push managed security services capability to UK resellers

Security appliance vendor Fortinet has signed an agreement with distributor Fresh Egg to push its managed security services capability to UK resellers.

Fresh Egg becomes Fortinet's third UK distributor and will offer resellers white-label managed-service capabilities based on Fortinet's security appliance.

The FortiGate range of application-specific integrated circuit appliances can run a virtual private network, firewall, intrusion detection and prevention.

Antivirus applications can be offered separately as managed services. The applications can scale from SME to carrier class, Fortinet claimed.

Fresh Egg completes the vendor's distribution line-up, which already includes security expert Wick Hill and distributor Ideal Hardware.

Jonathan Mepsted, regional director for UK and Ireland at Fortinet, said the company's distribution layer was complete, with all partners offering different strengths.

He said good margins are available to resellers. "We make our money from the tin and resellers make money adding value and services," he said.

Graham Fox, managing director of Fresh Egg, said the distributor gives margins of as much as 40 per cent to resellers. "We offer resellers the chance to white-label managed services, which increases revenues and gets the product introduced to a wide spectrum of customers," he said.

But Ash Hussein, sales and marketing director at security VAR Axial Systems, said the managed services opportunity is not as big as initially predicted.

"The market is still in the early stages, and although it is not as big as expected the opportunity is there," he said.

Ian Kilpatrick, managing director at distributor Wick Hill, said the product is selling well at both ends of the market.

"In the low end we have people looking at it as an antivirus firewall, and the gigabit appliance is competing well on price performance in the high end," he said.