Webroot: We're all about the channel now

Vendor claims to have turned the business on its head in just 18 months

Webroot has insisted it is winning back resellers after rapidly re-embracing the channel over the past 18 months.

The vendor has been keen to prove its channel credentials over the last few years after it caused uproar in 2011 when it exited the email security market and introduced a minimum order value for partners on its web security offering.

Last September, Webroot told CRN it was on a mission to win back resellers which had stopped working with it after the changes were made, and today the firm claimed its comeback is going well.

Webroot's vice president for SMB and consumer sales David Bennett, insists the firm has pushed more and more business through partners.

"We've gone through a bell curve as a company: we used to be a direct company - even more so in North America - then we kind of started to go channel focused, now it's all channel focused now," he said.

"If you looked at our business a year and a half ago, probably 50-60 per cent of our business was still direct but if you look at our business now, it's probably north of 95 per cent [through the channel]."

He added that the remaining five per cent is accounted for by its online store but insisted the firm only sells a small portfolio at a fixed price through the site.

In the last 12 months, the firm has grown its global channel base from 400 to 1,600, according to Bennett, who said partners are quickly coming around to the idea of Webroot being channel friendly.

"You still get people that think Webroot is a consumer business or something like that, but we're seeing [resellers] who are losing business to us via other resellers and are then coming on board - that's happening pretty rapidly," he said.

"I don't think [our old, direct reputation] is an issue. My mandate has been that we are a channel company. If we want to scale the company we have to be 100 per cent channel, except for that small online component."

As part of its new channel focus, Webroot has unveiled a new partner programme which it claims offers partners improved features - such as web content and social syndication and an improved resource centre - in order to make it easier to sell its kit.

"In addition, partners committed to working with Webroot and meeting a minimum quarterly revenue attainment are enrolled as Elite Resellers and receive added benefits such as qualified sales leads, speaking engagements and joint seminars, market expansion programmes, sales incentives, and a dedicated channel account manager," the vendor statement said.