OTTAWA – Emerging technology areas can mean stronger margins for partners, and one Canadian software vendor says it has an emerging opportunity for security vendors: classification.
Based in Ottawa, Titus Inc. is a software vendor with offerings in the SharePoint security and data loss prevention spaces, but it sees the strongest opportunity around its e-mail, document and file classification software.
Mark Fitchett, director of global channels for Titus, said the vendor’s classification software works for e-mails in both Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes, as well as with SharePoint documents and other files such as video and images. In essence, the e-mailer classifies the message or file into one of several categories. Behind each category are policies set by the IT department that, based on the sensitivity of the information, determine what can be done with the information and where it can be sent, or not be sent. For example, corporate sensitive files may not be allowed to leave the internal network.
“Classification is this whole new wave coming to the security industry,” said Fitchett. “They’ve always had to put up barriers, such as firewall, anti-virus and encryption, to stop information from going in and out. But they’ve never addressed the source information.”
Software such as that from Titus is designed to work in conjunction with those other technologies for a more efficient security system. For example, a DLP system could read the Titus metadata in the file and make better, and quicker, decisions about what to do with that file.
“We’re like the first line of defence, sanitizing the information before it hits that DLP machine,” said Fitchett. “That’s why companies like McAfee want our technology; it makes their machines work more effectively and efficiently. They have less false positives, and more information to make better decisions.”
Titus is a member of McAfee’s security innovation alliance program for third-party security vendors that work to integrate their solutions with McAfee’s program and co-market the offering through their channel. And Titus also recently inked an agreement with enterprise information protection vendor Verdasys that will see Titus’ classification software embedded directly into its DLP solution.
About 80 per cent of Titus’ business goes through the channel, and partners can earn margins starting at a base of 20 per cent, rising to 35 per cent if a deal is registered and then closed. The vendor recently held its first partner conference in Ottawa with attendees from 30 partners in 17 countries attending.
Right now Titus has six Canadian partners, including Softchoice, 2Keys and Falken Secure Networks, concentrated mainly along the Windsor/Quebec City corridor, but with some presence in Calgary. Fitchett said his goal for 2012 is to build the partner base in Western Canada, in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg. He’d also like to see another partner in Montreal, and some presence in Quebec City.
Titus’ ideal VAR is a young, nimble, small company with a strong IT security background, and experience with DLP, public key infrastructure and encryption technologies. The oil sands, utility and telecom industries have all been strong verticals for Titus, but Fitchett said their strongest has been the government and the military.
“Those organizations have traditionally classified their information, and have always needed to put labels on their documents,” said Fitchett. “Now, that’s being driven right down to the user level when the document is created. It’s a lot easier to facilitate and make sure they’re in top of it.”
On the commercial side, risk assessment, compliance, governance and the protection of intellectual property are all key drivers for classification software.
Follow Jeff Jedras on Twitter: @JeffJedrasCDN.