Avalanche sees reseller growth with AVG product

In October 2007 Australian distributor, Avalanche Technology Group dropped AVG from its portfolio after launching, AVG AU/NZ Pty Ltd, a new business dedicated to the AVG range of Internet security products.

At the time avalanche launched an AVG dedicated website and reseller centre have also been launched as part of the move that will enable better management and distribution of AVG products for the Australian market

Peter Cameron, managing director at Avalanche told CRN, the company had a fantastic year in 2007, with the distributor experiencing 369 percent growth.

“While I can’t give exact figures on the growth I will say that in terms of dollars, you’re looking at millions and millions. Without giving an exact figure the monetary value of the AVG business comes close to $10 million,” he said.

According to Cameron, Avalanche’s reseller growth has been consistent in the past year, with the distributor signing 10-15 resellers a week.

“As of 8 February, we have signed up 1463 resellers. These resellers range from small systems builders and IT consultants to large service providers. There isn’t a specific demographic attributing to the reseller sign-ups. It’s really across a broad spectrum of resellers,” said Cameron.

Cameron said the AVG brand is widely recognised in the anti-virus and Internet security marketplace.

“With the AVG brand being easily recognisable, Grisoft, the owner of the AVG product has decided to change its name to align with the AVG brand,” he said.

Previously, there has been a lot of confusion in the marketplace between Grisoft and the AVG branding, said Cameron.

“I liken it to Coke Cola - it’s both a product and a brand name. Before we bought the AVG.com.au web business in 2007, Web monitoring company, HitWise told us that 57 percent of visitors to the AVG.com.au site were looking up words like anti-virus and AVG. That’s why we decided to set up a separate AVG business, Grisoft is now doing the same thing. It’s also acquiring all the AVG domain names to stop any confusion,” he said.