Vectra encourages partners to be MSPs with technology programme
Vendor wants to decrease technical risk for partners
Network behavioural analysis vendor Vectra has launched a new technology partner programme with the aim of persuading channel partners to become MSPs.
The Silicon Valley-based vendor is integrating its automated threat management products with vendors including IBM, HPE and VMware in the hope that it will be easier for its resellers to offer full managed services to customers.
Matt Walmsley, EMEA director at Vectra, said: "In the partner landscape, they spend a lot of time investing and building businesses around security. Channel partners are looking to augment and build out multi-layered offerings and service delivery capabilities as they try to transform their business from being traditional resellers to being very services led. That's why we've gone out and created technology alliances."
The four-year-old company has about 10 partners in the UK, and Walmsley said the new technology alliances will make it easier and quicker for those partners to take full security packages to market.
"We create the technology, integrate it and approve it with the other vendors," he explained. "That is really about managing the technical risk for them, making it easier and quicker and accelerating their time to market. The alternative would be [for them] to put it all together themselves; it's a lot of time and money."
The new programme is part of the vendor's growth strategy, which saw Vectra launch its first channel programme in March, including training and co-marketing funds.
Nebulas has been partners with Vectra for over a year, both in a reseller and MSP capacity. Its technical director, Ade Taylor, said he thinks the technology programme will help it to enhance its MSP offerings by making it easier to integrate Vectra's products with other solutions.
"Managed services as a business is a model we have been working towards for a long time. It not only allows us to do better things for the customer, it is better for our business as well," he said.
"The vendors that want us to sell their boxes in volume don't particularly like us to do that, because they don't make any money from our services. When we get people like Vectra who encourage us to do it, it makes it better for everyone. If they are fully supporting our services, we are much more likely to use their products to do those services. It's very refreshing for me."