Mississauga, Ont.-based distributor, Tech Data Canada, together with security software, hardware and service vendor, Trend Micro Inc. unveiled a joint usage-based licensing program that’s designed for resellers across North America.
Also included in service offerings under the joint program is Trend Micro’s SecureCloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) security platform, which includes security applications such as, E-mail Reputation Services, InterScan Messaging Hosted Security and Botnet Identification Service. With these applications, users are protected against e-mail and web threats in addition to other security protection measures.
“As Trend Micro continues to bring products to market, I suspect solutions will be delivered via the pay-as-you-use model,” Greg Myers, vice-president of marketing at Tech Data Canada. “This seems to be where the future is headed.”
Tech Data Canada notes that one of the things that helps differentiate this program from others is that its current customers can take advantage of Trend Micro security solutions by using a pay-as-you-use system. With the new program, both companies maintain resellers can obtain a Trend Micro software license with no up front costs or obligations. License use is strictly based on a monthly pay-as-you-use basis, therefore eliminating the need for future license renewals.
Myers said this offering is unique model.
“This is a different approach where the reseller and their customers purchase the ability to utilize software as a service on a monthly basis,” Myers said. “What was formally a product is now a monthly service that’s charged as a monthly fee. This includes different security and Internet security type services.”
Myers said this new program primarily targets the small to medium sized business market space.
“The intent [of the program] is not to replace enterprise licenses,” Myers said. “This allows small businesses the opportunities to provide their business with an enterprise level of security that’s much more affordable and simpler.”
Currently, with the Trend Micro customer base, Myers estimates there to be about 150 partners across Canada that help make up the business. He goes on to mention that the partner community continues to grow exponentially and he expects this growth to maintain its current speed.
“The SMB is under serviced in this space,” Myers said. “It’s an evolving market and the SMB market place is a bright spot for many security vendors today.”
To help ready partners with the roll out of this new program, webinars and other support services have been created to ensure both partner and ultimately, end-user success.
“There are so many products [out there that] it’s hard to stay abreast of all of the[m],” Myers said. “Through seminars, web resources, webinars and other mechanisms, we will try to distill the most important developments and initiatives to our partners.”
In addition, Myers makes mention of some of the attractive benefits partners can expect to see when participating in the program.
“Part of the value is the more customers [that partners] deploy the service to on a monthly basis, the larger the discounts are for them,” Myers said. “They’ll bill the customer for X dollars and as they increase the amount of customers, their discount substantially increases. Trend Micro has talked about discounts as being in excess of 20 per cent.”
Coupled with ample margins and partner support, Tech Data is certain they are off to the right start.
“We want to get the information out to the partners with webinars,” Myers said. “I expect momentum will be built over the next 12 to 18 months. The outlook and future seems to be very strong as we’re starting to see more technology being taken up by the SMB market.”