Trend Micro fires up channel lead generator

Vendor promises to bring quality virtualisation security leads to its resellers' doors

Trend Micro's new UK channel director has put lead generation at the heart of his strategy as he looks to drum up new opportunities for partners, particularly in the field of virtualisation security.

Tim Ayling (pictured), who joined Trend Micro in February as part of a wider UK reorganisation, said the emphasis will now be on building a pipeline for resellers, rather than expecting them to do the grunt work.

To reflect this, Trend has rebranded its channel account managers (CAMs) as channel sales managers. They will spend 60 per cent of their time with partners and 40 per cent qualifying leads.

Trend will focus its lead generation efforts on its Deep Security virtualisation security offering, which is "two to three years" ahead of the competition, claimed Ayling.

From 1 April, the vendor will kick off a three-month incentive programme designed to encourage resellers to carry out as many Deep Security proofs of concept as possible. The individual sales staff, resellers and distributors that get the most done will be handsomely rewarded, Ayling hinted.

Trend is also in the process of recruiting a virtualisation expert to get more VMware partners.

"We are here to create leads for our partners and think we will get the most from the virtualisation space as we have such a big advantage there," said Ayling, who also heads UK marketing for Trend.

"Virtualisation is the new frontier of security and there is recognition from VMware that we are the number-one player."

Rob Gupta, managing director of Trend Micro partner Secon, said his firm has a big footprint in Trend's traditional endpoint security base but is keen to move forwards with Deep Security.

"We are getting more and more requests from clients that need to secure virtualisation projects. We understand the need to make that shift and welcome it," he said.