Barracuda seeks UK VARs for market drive

Vendor pleased with progress of recruitment drive, but reveals it is seeking more resellers

Network security appliance vendor Barracuda has claimed it is signing an average of 20 to 30 VARs a month in the UK and is on the hunt for more.

The vendor recently launched the latest in its load-balancing device family – the Barracuda Load Balancer 640 – which it said will help its partners reach new customers in the medium-sized and enterprise space.

Paul Thackeray, UK managing director at Barracuda, said: “The 640 device gives our resellers another tool to take to market. There are a lot of firms that already have load balancers, but many medium-sized companies have not been able to afford these devices before. It also opens up a chunk of the market for new VARs in the networking space and it is these partners that interest us.

“We are looking to take on networking resellers that do a lot of security work. This will help us gain a lot more visibility in the market.”

However, Thackeray said the vendor is also keen to strengthen ties with existing partners and is encouraging its resellers to run marketing campaigns and help raise awareness of Barracuda’s offerings.

“We are open to anything that resellers want to come up with and have already done a number of initiatives including Barracuda-branded vehicles and sponsorship of golfing events,” he said.

Barrie Green, sales manager at Barracuda partner Qual, said: “The 640 is more of a natural progression and it gives us access to the true enterprise end of the market. Even though the boxes are competing with other products in the market, it adds extra functionality and we are seeing a lot of interest at the moment.”

Barracuda unveils load-balancing device