BitDefender adds e92plus to distribution set-up

Anti-virus vendor continues eventful UK trajectory with addition of third distie

Anti-virus vendor BitDefender has made e92plus its third UK distributor in its ongoing quest to crack the SMB market.

The Surbiton-based distie joins EntaTech and Interactive Ideas in the security player's UK line-up. It will be focusing on BitDefender's Security for Virtualised Environments (SVE) product, and will also become an Authorised Training Centre for resellers.

Mukesh Gupta, managing director of e92plus, said: "BitDefender virtualisation security offers VARs a great proposition to take to customers. It also complements both our security and virtualisation solutions, and will help build a more complete, profitable package for resellers to take to market."

BitDefender has had an eventful couple of years in the UK, particularly in in the distribution space. In 2010 it acrimoniously split with long-time ally Security IP, after the now-defunct distributor fell way behind on payments.

C-MI Labs was then brought in, but within a month three of BitDefender's UK management team and another four local employees had parted company with the vendor, and its new distribution partner was not far behind.

Early last year BitDefender outlined plans to bring in new UK distribution partners, and 400 additional resellers, to help fulfil its goal of making a bigger splash in the B2B space.

As of the beginning of 2011, the vendor drew 60 per cent of its total sales from the consumer space, with 20 per cent apiece coming from SMB and OEM. Its stated aim is to bring the SMB figure up to 40 per cent this year and to 70 per cent within half a decade.

Shaun Donaldson, director of strategic alliances at BitDefender, said: "This new relationship between BitDefender and e92plus comes during an important time, as organisations across the public and private sectors continue to evaluate and migrate to cloud computing and virtualisation technologies."