Aventail to upsize local channel

SSL VPN vendor Aventail has outlined plans to take on more Australasian channel partners in a bid to harvest expected sales growth for the minority VPN alternative.

Andrew Draper, Aventail’s newly-appointed regional sales manager for Australasia, said the company was on the verge of announcing new local signings.

“We want to grow our market share and revenue in this market. To grow our access into the market, we want to find appropriate resellers and channel partners,” he said.

Aventail had been talking to four potential distribution partners in Australia and two in New Zealand. However, he refused to name them, saying only that they wanted someone in Perth -- current partner Kanbay had no presence in Perth, Draper said -- and that the market had room for more resellers in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne as well.

Hosting partners to help bring SSL VPN as a managed service -- to, for example, smaller companies reining in overall capex -- might also join up. A local carrier could be signed, Draper added.

However, he also hinted that global partners already working with Aventail overseas, such as IBM’s global services arm, and former partners of Fortinet could be among the new signings.

“IBM, for example, has a very large presence here,” Draper said.

Richard Ting, Asia-Pacific operations director at Aventail, said the vendor was “probably” not that well-known in Australia yet.

IP VPN had 90 percent of the entire VPN market and SSL VPN just 10 percent. Yet SSL VPN’s advantages, particularly its ability to secure remote access, meant analysts expected the technology to leap ahead, Ting said.

“Aventail has been seeing 90 percent growth year on year,” he said.

Aventail in the US recently sold off its managed services business, but Ting said that the business was performing well. The sale was so Aventail could commit maximum resources to SSL VPN, Ting said.