Symantec.cloud won't eat the business: exec

Symantec has rejected suggestions that its fast-growing cloud security business was at risk of cannibalising its traditional customer base.

Formed from the acquisition of UK firm MessageLabs in late 2008, Symantec.cloud has been growing around 50 percent year on year as more organisations warm to the prospect of cheaper and more easily managed security services.

Symantec.cloud regional director for Asia Nigel Mendonca admitted that many of these were Symantec’s own customers. 

He said that the cheaper prices of the service had created conflicts within Symantec’s Australian channel with some resellers exploiting the higher margins available with Symantec.cloud to set prices that traditional partners found hard to match.

“There’s always going to be partners that will decide to take a low margin,” he said. 

But Mendonca noted that there remained much to differentiate the company’s cloud-based and traditional offerings and that organisations would ultimately chose according to their needs.

“They [organisations] won’t all migrate to the cloud overnight.” 

Still, Mendonca said Symantec.cloud already had around 3,000 customers in Australia. Most of these were smaller businesses; however he said there was more interest from enterprises including banks, which were in the process of conducting due diligence on cloud-based security solutions.

A big driver of the cloud security market was email with Symantec estimating that between 30 and 35 percent of all Australian businesses were securing email through the cloud, with the company controlling about 60 percent of that market. 

Mendonca said sales of Symantec.cloud had been driven largely through the company’s channel which would receive further support in the form of education programs and other resources as part of a formal program to be announced in October.