MessageLabs seeks Associate-level partners
Email security services vendor is also looking to push deeper into Europe
Email security services vendor MessageLabs is looking to more than double its Associate-level partners in the UK over the next three months.
The vendor, which operates a single-tier strategy in the UK, is also looking to push deeper into Europe and aims to triple its channel base in territories such as Benelux, France and the Middle East.
Richard Collins, vice-president EMEA sales, MessageLabs, said: “We have seen some extensive growth over the past 18 months. What we are starting to see across the SME and small office, home office markets is a drain on company resources with respect to virus and spam management.
“We are looking to double our Associate channel to help us handle the amount of leads we generate and further drive demand.”
Collins said the vendor has about 500 Associate partners in the UK at the moment, but is keen to ramp those numbers up to between 700 and 750.
“We are pushing our sales and partner teams pretty aggressively and are keen to recruit partners that take security seriously,” he said. “Because we are the only player that offers SMTP and HTTP mail management technology there is a real opportunity for new partners to differentiate themselves from the competition.”
Steven Clare, networking and support manager at MessageLabs partner System Three Business Solutions, said: “Before, this type of technology was not affordable for smaller firms. Now it has come down a lot in price, which has made it attractive to those companies. We can offer MessageLabs’ services as part of an existing service sale so it provides a good add-on opportunity.”
Collins claimed that the market demand is such that a doubling of channel numbers will not affect MessageLabs’ existing partners.
“Because of the significant growth in the market we are not dealing with saturation. Technically there is still demand to satisfy,” he said.
In addition, MessageLabs is launching other incentives for its channel, including its Club MessageLabs scheme – which supplies partners with a card that amasses points on each sale, like a credit card. Those points can be exchanged for goods or services of the partners’ choice.