Netskope teams up with Exclusive on global-domination plan

Vendor looks to boost VAR ranks across UK, EMEA, Australia and New Zealand

Fledgling cloud security vendor Netskope has signed up with Exclusive Networks as it looks to triple the number of resellers it works with in the UK.

The California-headquartered firm was set up two years ago and claims to give customers "visibility and control" of their IT estate in response to the growing shadow IT trend. It advises customers on security policies after its products analyse their cloud apps.

Exclusive Networks will be charged with shifting its technology across the UK, EMEA, Australia and New Zealand as the company looks to grow rapidly.

Netskope's vice president for international, Eduard Meelhuysen, said there was no danger the firm was spreading itself too thin with its global expansion.

"Not only will we have a relationship with Exclusive in all these areas, but we will have [our] people there or put [our] people there too," he said. "We currently have a lot of regional sales teams running around."

The firm currently has around 50 partners across the world, about 10 of which are based in the UK. Meelhuysen said he hopes the Exclusive deal will add another 20 resellers to its UK books, but insisted quality is preferable to quantity.

"We're not here to add millions of partners; everyone needs to earn some money," he said. "We want them to be active and earn, there is no sense to add and add so they are in competition with each other. They will be handpicked with Exclusive as we move forward."

He added that Exclusive Networks has been on his radar for a long time, and he knows the firm's management well, which was a key reason behind the partnership.

"They have a really good brand name... and if you want to do something serious in terms of security, it's them, right?" he said. "How they have built the company is really impressive."

The distie's chief executive Olivier Breittmayer said signing Netskope was part of its commitment to new technology.

"We're always looking for innovative, emerging technologies so that we can offer resellers best-of-breed solutions which provide real value to their customers," he said. "With enterprise cloud app use increasing rapidly, shadow IT is going to create significant security challenges for businesses in the months and years ahead.

"We are now actively recruiting resellers with the cloud security expertise to take Netskope solutions to market to help their customers stay secure in the cloud app era."