Biometrics and encryption specialist DigitalPersona is teaming up today with security distributor CMI Labs to kick off a channel campaign targeting SMEs.
The vendor says it will provide education, training and financial incentives to a small number of specialist resellers around its suite of security applications, DigitalPersona Pro.
DigitalPersona Pro is a centrally-managed software suite that protects data and controls access to PCs by integrating several applications under a single management and authentication infrastructure.
As well as offering DigitalPersona Pro in its own right, DigitalPersona is also at the heart of HP ProtectTools, a suite of security tools that lets users manage security for their laptops and desktops from one central point.
Education
CMI Labs will work with DigitalPersona on recruitment, although MD Adam Trussler says they’re not looking for hundreds of new partners, but aims to “recruit around 20 resellers across four or five key verticals over next two quarters.” Key verticals include education, healthcare, professional services and Government.
The companies stress the need for customer awareness around the repercussions from data loss and the hefty fines now being imposed by the ICO. “Organisations will soon start being heavily fined for no compliance; we need resellers to help us educate organisations in what they need to do. We need them to preach about encryption best practice,” he told Channel Pro.
A DigitalPersona survey at InfoSec this year found that two thirds of respondents (67 percent) hold disk encryption to be an IT security priority. However, it also said while large enterprises have the resources to implement comprehensive disk encryption on all devices, smaller organisations have reported difficulty finding encryption that is affordable and easy to implement.
SMB support
While maintaining DigitalPersona is tailored towards SMBs and midsized organisations, the firm’s UK MD, Benjamin Boulnois, says he is sceptical of the big security players’ ability to provide products for SMEs, as well as what he perceives as a lack of support for resellers.
“McAfee and Symantec and the others that have been banging after large enterprise will have to move towards SMB because there is nowhere else to go. But they’re not providing the solutions that the market really wants,” he maintains. “They may offer a slimmed down version in the future, but not at the moment. We have a bit of a head start there.”
“SMBs simply do not get support they need. [DigitalPersona] will help them with marketing, meet end users, offer price protection, lead generation, help them close business – it’s unusual for resellers to receive that kind of support,” adds Trussler.
“SMBs will get support and love they will not get from bigger vendors,” he adds. “It won’t be long before they are taking business from the bigger guys.”
