Webroot targets Australian channel growth

CRN reported in October that UK-based Email Systems had opened a Sydney office as part of its Asia Pacific expansion plans.

In November, Webroot Software announced that it has merged with Email Systems. The move enables Webroot to this year move into the Australian market for the first time.

Webroot has appointed David Borgnis as national channel manager, Crispin Kerr as national enterprise sales manager, Dean Bartle as customer support and services manager, and Alex Monfort as senior systems engineer. They join former SurfControl APAC head Charles Heunemann and form the new Webroot team in Sydney.

Heunemann, who is managing director for Asia Pacific, said: “We will now be focusing almost exclusively on the delivery of our SaaS (software as a service) offering.”

Heunemann said the merged entity is on the lookout for new partners across Asia Pacific. “In Australia we had two channel partners. One national partner, Clearswift, and a partner in Queensland. We have now signed up nine new partners in the last 12 weeks. We have got five employees in Asia Pacific and will have 12 to 14 by the end of the year.”

Borgnis, added: “We have got an aggressive program to get relationships with resellers and we will be using a 100 percent channel model. We have not set a reseller recruitment target, but we want to build relationships with partners in all territories across Australia.”