Symantec: Intelligence will give us the edge in channel

The fact security is becoming increasingly about intelligence will play into Symantec's hands, the vendor's new UK boss Keith Bird tells CRN

Symantec's new UK boss wants to reactivate resellers that have disengaged with the vendor, claiming only his firm can give them the edge around threat intelligence.

Keith Bird, whose move to Symantec from rival Check Point was revealed by CRN in May, said Symantec is looking to add to its network of 88 managed and 400 unmanaged UK reseller partners.

"We are looking to bring on good-quality, security-focused resellers and are keen to talk to anyone not currently working with us or engaged with us in a proactive way," said Bird (pictured), who was formally unveiled as vice president of northern Europe – covering the UK, Ireland and the Nordics – this week.

"If you look at the bigger picture and what's becoming important in security, it's really about the intelligence," he continued. "Having the largest global intelligence network in the world in the private sector gives us information and visibility on a much larger scale than any other vendor. If you couple that with the value-added services we have, such as our monitoring services, that partners can wrap their own services around, it starts to become a compelling end-to-end story."

Bird said one of his key priorities will be to impress on partners the breadth of products and services Symantec now offers.

"In the past I wasn't aware of exactly how many different products, services and solutions Symantec has to offer," he said. "We have a number of services the channel may not be aware of and can provide to customers. For instance, our monitoring services have 500 people around the world who are monitoring people's networks and we have services that follow on from that, such as our incident-response service. We need to bring to the attention of the channel the breadth of our offering."

Symantec and Veritas – the new name for its information management business – are now largely acting as separate companies, although the formal split will not occur until some time between October and January.

Bird claimed the accompanying restructuring carried out at the security business he is now running – which included moving some inside sales and partner functions to Dublin – is largely behind the vendor.

"We are now very focused on being externally focused. From a sales and marketing and operations perspective, the separation is done and we are in the process of finalising that process in legal and HR. Most of the staff know what their new roles will be," he said.

All inside sales and inside partner account management functions are now carried out from Symantec's Dublin customer management centre, Bird confirmed. This means 33 UK partners are directly managed from the field partner account management team in the UK, with a further 55 directly managed from the inside partner account management team in Dublin.

"We now have those teams together in one facility," Bird said. "That facility in Dublin is doing a superb job for us in managing those partners to which we are providing direct support."