AlienVault beams up second UK distributor

Security management vendor says market was too big for existing ally VCW to handle by itself

Security management vendor AlienVault claims the UK market is big enough to support two distributors after slotting in Cohort Technology alongside existing ally VCW.

Cohort will carry AlienVault's flagship Unified Security Management (USM) platform, an open source platform providing asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, threat detection, behavioural monitoring and security intelligence.

The appointment comes just five months after AlienVault signed VCW but Richard Kirk, senior vice president of international sales at the vendor, argued there would be little conflict between the pair.

"We believe the market is so big that one distributor could not handle it," he said.

"With USM, you get a lot more for less. If you look at the traditional SIEM vendors, it will probably cost you five to 10 times more to properly implement a security solution as you have to bring all those solutions independently."

The vendor currently has about 10 to 15 UK partners, Kirk added.

Grahame Smee, managing director of Cohort (pictured), said the distributor would implement a partner programme for AlienVault resellers encompassing training and a proof-of-concept scheme.

"AlienVault is very competitively priced against the established SIEM products and you can add elements to it to decide exactly what you want to manage and measure," he said.

"It is disruptive and covers a lot of bases."

Graham Fox, managing director of VCW, welcomed the arrival of a second distributor.

"We never seek exclusivity and the market is large enough to support two distributors," said Fox. "It is flattering that the activity we have done so far has caught the attention of other distributors and they want to jump on the bandwagon."

Smee also blasted back at recent murmurings that the UK's line-up of incumbent VADs is full to innovative new start-up vendors.

"There is always room at the inn for vendors that see the true benefit of value-add," he said.