Logpoint signs Exertis as part of UK expansion plans

SIEM vendor looking to poach customers from LogRhythm and Splunk with new distie

Security information and event management (SIEM) vendor Logpoint has signed Exertis as its sole distributor in the UK as it looks to expand beyond its Scandinavian roots.

The vendor has been in the UK for two years in start-up mode and is "slowly but surely starting to take off", according to Graeme Stewart, managing director UK and Ireland at Logpoint.

Logpoint is based in Denmark, and Stewart claimed this gives the vendor an advantage in the UK market.

"It has a different feel from West Coast vendors. It's got a Scandinavian look and feel to it," he said. "It's a very clean, simple interface and it's very simple to use, so the customers like that."

Logpoint has inked an exclusive agreement with Exertis, and the distributor has agreed not to look for other SIEM vendors.

"Exertis are very technically competent. It means they become a natural extension of how I want my business constructed," Stewart said.

The vendor is 100 per cent channel focused, and is looking for Exertis to recruit between 10 and 15 new partners in the next 12 months.

"I'm interested in both MSPs and VARs, so customers can choose between the full all-singing Rio Carnival and the village fete depending on their requirements," added Stewart.

He said that Logpoint is gaining customers from the big players in the space such as HP and IBM because of its pricing.

"Typically, customers use these companies because they've got lots of their other products," Stewart said. "Where we see customers replace them with us is the inflection points in their contracts. They tend to move to us because they can get the same results for considerably less money.

"Where we get customers from LogRhythm and Splunk is where I know I can exceed their technical piece and their user experience."

Jason Hill, sales director at Exertis, said the distributor previously didn't have a SIEM vendor in its portfolio, and realised it was something the firm needed to provide for its partners.

"We found the approach that Logpoint take to SIEM is very refreshing. They are very innovative and easy to work with. You can feel that they want to work with us and the channel. We can give them scalability very quickly. We have partners in every nook and cranny of the UK, so we can get country-wide very fast," he said.

"We are carefully selecting partners we already have that maybe sell solutions based around ForeScout, as it is a very complex product. Logpoint sits there to simplify and report on what they do. We are looking at the partners who sell SonicWall's enterprise solutions as well because we believe both these types of partners have the right customer base for Logpoint."