Hosting security is not so mysterious

Many resellers are still profiting from the basic principles of selling products, but change is on the horizon

Gunter Fuhrmann: A service can be adapted quickly to any security threats that may arise

An outsider must think the IT security industry moves in mysterious ways. Why encourage your resellers to move from selling products to hosting services when many are still profiting well? For good reason: in five years, 75 per cent of all security will be provided as a hosted service.

A recent report from Gartner, Cloud-Based Computing will Enable New Security Services and Endanger Old Ones, estimates that security software-as-a-service adoption could triple in the next five years and underlines the benefits, demand and acceptance of hosted security services.

This is where the market potential and future opportunities lie and why Kaspersky opened a dedicated datacentre in the UK to handle an expected rise in demand for our hosted security services following the launch of the Kaspersky Hosted Security Service in January 2008.

The internet has given criminals more opportunities to deliver their threats. They have developed a range of menacing codes that can infect business systems and our partners must keep pace.

In the future, we expect complete security to be better provided through a service rather than through a product. Since the combination of security threats is evolving, the solution has to be equally flexible.

A product has a range of functions designed to do a specific job, but a service can be adapted to whatever security challenges arise and can be paid for by subscriptions.

Hosted services will continue to evolve because security is not just about hosting the infrastructure, but providing the tools to manage this infrastructure.
The better hosted service providers will continue their metamorphosis into portal providers, offering additional business applications in the cloud on top of their hosted services.

Such portal providers will have the flexibility to invest in different sectors and find new markets.
There are certain partners that have a natural aptitude for services, and those resellers with a good pre-sales and after-sales support are the ones that could become service providers.

Their greatest strength will be their ability to adapt to new threats and new ways of offering support and protection to their customers.

Gunter Fuhrmann is director of hosted security at security vendor Kaspersky Lab.