McAfee partner walks over support issues

Reseller switches to rival Sophos after securing £9,000 refund for customers over update issues

McAfee's support capabilities have been called into question by a former partner who is transitioning its client base to rival security vendor Sophos.

Long-time McAfee ally Somerbys claims seven of its customers experienced severe issues with McAfee's SaaS end-point product last summer which led the vendor to issue it with a refund of nearly £9,000.

According to Somerbys managing director Jonathan Appleton, an update had led the machines to become so slow as to be unusable.

"We escalated it through McAfee's support team and they could not find a fix," said Appleton. "When it got up to their third tier [of support] and they were still scratching their heads, it was time to go elsewhere."

Appleton praised McAfee for eventually providing a full refund of £8,941.76 plus VAT in the form of credit through distribution. However, he remained critical of the vendor's channel support capabilities.

Leicester-based Somerbys evaluated four alternatives before plumping for Sophos and is halfway through transitioning its 50-strong client base.

James Vyvyan, director of channel sales UK&I at Sophos, said: "Somerbys had had issues with McAfee support for a while and this was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Ash Hussain, managing director of McAfee partner Axial Systems, said obtaining refunds from vendors was often a "tortuous path".

"If a solution is proven not to work, every vendor should be responsive in crediting the customer back," he said.

A McAfee representative said it had no immediate visibility of the issues as Somerbys was only a registered rather than accredited or specialised partner.

"However, we take matters such as this very seriously and we are currently looking into the concerns that have been raised and potential remedial actions," the statement added.

The vendor also recently lifted the wraps on its first SMB partner specialisation, admitting it had until recently lacked a focus on the segment.