DESlock to lavish £500k wad on channel

After years of "dabbling and fiddling", encryption vendor formalises ties with the channel

Encryption vendor DESlock is ploughing the best part of £500,000 into the UK channel as it looks to formalise ties with up to 25 resellers.

Fresh from spinning out of parent DES, DESlock is building a team of channel-focused staff and has launched a partner programme offering VARs up to 30 per cent discount on registered deals.

DESlock raised about £490,000 to fund its expansion as an independent company and managing director David Tomlinson revealed that most of this would be lavished on the channel, with the rest going on sales and marketing.

"This is our first attempt to formalise ties with the channel," he said. "We have dabbled and fiddled, but almost accidentally."

The vendor's DESlock Pro and Standard offerings grew out of an internal encryption tool DES developed to securely exchange code with clients, including Nokia. It was never a core offering for the software copyright protection specialist, said Tomlinson.

Tomlinson added that the DESlock Enterprise Server's ability to work with a cloud-hosted intermediary means the product can be set up as a demo in a "fraction of the time of the competition". Some 80 per cent of demos lead to sales, he added.

"Our marketing collateral for big days out is limited but this does not diminish the quality of the products. We need to get customers in and trying it," he said.

DESlock's relationships with distributors CMI and Sigma, which have typically offered resellers margins of about 15 to 20 per cent, according to Tomlinson, will no longer be a focus.

"To sell encryption, our own support staff need to get as close to customers as possible as it is a very technical sale," he explained

Partners automatically bag 20 per cent margin on business they close, with additional deal registration margin of five and 10 per available, depending on whether the deal is closed by the original partner or a competitor.