By Tabrez Khan, CRN, March 22, 2010, 1100 hrs
Trend Micro has launched Worry-Free, a SaaS-based security offering for small and medium businesses (SMBs).
Key features of Worry-Free include USB threat protection, Web reputation services, behavior monitoring, firewall, Wi-Fi protection, content filtering for instant messaging conversations, and POP3 anti-spam. A single user license for Worry-Free SaaS will cost $32 per user per year, with a minimum purchase of two users.
“It’s an ideal solution for SMBs which do not have in-house IT expertise, and do not want to manage or overload their own servers. From a partner perspective, it drastically reduces the cost of pre and post-sales support,” said Greg Boyle, Global Product Marketing Manager, Worry-Free Business Security Services, Trend Micro.
According to Boyle, with Worry-Free, there’s no installation or trial cost for partners, and support cost is also reduced because onsite support is not required. “We provide resellers with a tool called Worry-Free Remote Manager, a free Web-based console which allows them to remotely manage all their Trend Micro customers; with it they can also manage Worry-Free Business Services and all other hosted security products. They can make configuration changes and troubleshoot from the console itself.”
“We will be targeting small business partners across major metros and class B and C cities. The idea is to reach out to the large base of smaller business partners who service SMB customers. We are on a recruitment drive through our outsourcing agency that is already working on acquiring partners,” said Sanjay Singh, Head, Value and Volume, Channel Sales, India and Saarc, Trend Micro.
The vendor is looking at enrolling value-added reseller partners in cities such as Kochi, Madurai, Chandigarh, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati and other tier-2 and tier-3 cities, informed Singh. He also said that Trend Micro plans to triple the number of partners from the current 300 to 900 in 2010. The vendor has tied up with partner associations such as the Traders Association of Information Technology (TAIT) and Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA), and is conducting information sessions for its members about its SaaS offerings across major cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
“Trend Micro is globally involved with a lot of partner associations, and we are implementing this model in India as well,” Singh explained. “These are all prestigious associations, and our partnership with them is not just to provide members with information about our SaaS offerings but also to provide regular product and technology updates on our entire range of IT security offerings.”
On the adoption of SaaS in India, Singh said the penetration was still low with just 5 percent of enterprises adopting some form of security in the SaaS format. However, as enterprises increasingly realize the Capex savings, reliability, ease of use and flexibility of cloud-based security, SaaS should pick up. |