Secure's distie shake-up
Vendor appoints Risc for SmartFilter product after taking other distributors off it
Secure Computing has shaken up its distribution tier to create a greater focus on certain products.
Last week the vendor appointed Risc Technology as the exclusive pan-European distributor of its URL filtering product, SmartFilter.
However, existing distributors Centia and Softek were cut off from the product, after the vendor de-listed them both in January.
"Softek does not sell any of our products any more because it was not really getting us to the resellers we wanted to work with," said Andrew Philpott, vice-president of sales EMEA at Secure Computing. "Centia will now focus on our SmartWord for Citrix product."
Yuri Pasea, managing director of Centia, said SmartFilter was never a big focus for the firm. "It did not fit into our field of expertise," he said.
"Secure Computing has a wide range of products; not all are suitable for us to distribute. It will benefit from the signing of Risc for its URL filtering because it needs focus for it."
Philpott said the vendor is wary of becoming over-distributed, which VARs have claimed is rife in the security sector.
"With Risc we are reaching out to more end-users by developing a strong base of resellers while still not over-distributing," he added.
Kay Eggleston, UK country manager at Risc, said the distributor is hoping to raise awareness of Secure's URL filtering product.
"We want to grow the reseller base in the UK, because although people have heard of Secure Computing it is not synonymous with SmartFilter, which we want to change," she said.
"We already sell SmartFilter with our Blue Coat product, but we can now sell it with any platform."
The SmartFilter product looks at employee online activity and productivity. Eggleston claimed it is in great demand from businesses of various sizes.
She added: "It is a good product that comes in at a competitive price point from a vendor that is purely two-tier."