CMS Distribution takes 'next step' in security with AVG addition

CMS adds vendor AVG to growing list of security players

CMS Distribution has hailed its "next step" in the security market with its latest signing AVG.

The security vendor, founded in 1991, provides an anti-virus range that plays against Sophos and Kaspersky; a cloud-based solution that competes with Forcepoint and Mimecast; and a remote monitoring and management (RMM) offering.

With this agreement, for the full range of AVG's products in the UK and Ireland, CMS becomes the vendor's only traditional channel distributor, although AVG does have a small agreement with an OEM distributor, according to Simon Carr, security product manager at CMS.

Carr said AVG decided to partner with CMS because it wanted to increase its scale in the region as well as improve the service it provides its resellers.

CMS was attracted to AVG's new range of technology and its traditional anti-virus play.

"We do not currently have a leading tier-one brand in the anti-virus space," he said. "While it is not at the leading edge of security, it's a basic requirement and we wanted to have a good partner in place there."

Last year, CMS announced its intention to take on the security market, and has since signed a number of firms including iSheriff, AlienVault, Barracuda Networks and The Bunker. Carr said the latest addition is a "significant" move in this security push.

"It's certainly the next step," he said. "It's another new partnership, a large name and big project to take on. Hopefully, this will add more value to our resellers and also show other potential vendors we might be able to help rejuvenate their distribution channel."

AVG has more than 1,000 UK resellers, and while Carr said he did no't have a specific target of how many more it would like to sign, he said the plan is to first approach AVG's existing base and then target its own resellers.

Due to AVG's broad range of products, Carr said there was not one type of partner which is particularly suitable to the vendor, but he said that the cloud security tools "favour an MSP-type audience".