Trend Micro says resellers are nervous about the Cloud

Adam Biviano partner and alliance manager, Trend Micro, said its Smart Protection Network is about taking its technology and pushing it out to the cloud.

"No longer do we need big fat clients on desktops, we are looking at cloud based technologies to react quicker to threats as they arise," he said.

Biviano said there was some nervousness among resellers regarding the cloud because when vendors deliver a product as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) they see it as a way for those vendors to chop them (resellers) out of the loop.

"The customer and vendor has a stronger relationship today which means the balance of power is shifting and there is some concern that resellers will be left behind. That is not the case with us, we are 100 percent channel."

Reseller Louis Abdilla, director of security and services Content Security, and a Trend Micro AffinityONE partner agreed.

"The cloud is not an easy concept to understand and there is probably a bit of doubt to how it all works," he said.

"We have understood it for a while at Content Security because we have dealt with solutions that are only cloud for email but not for files or storage.

"The channel get worried that they will have less to do with it. It is something a bit different to what they have been doing."

Abdilla said he was attending the Trend Micro reseller series to keep on top of what's happening in the market and where technology is moving to.

"Security is always changing and as a reseller, you have got to keep on top of it," he said.

"We do a lot of penetration testing and security auditing. We find that no only are there viruses like Trojans out there, there is a lot of hacking into networks and a rise in stealing data.

"You have got to have a good knowledge of what's happening in the security space and be aware of the different vulnerabilites," he added.

Biviano said the theme of the event was to brief partners on the latest threats and how to make profit in times that are less certain by spotting opportunities.

"We are trying to take resellers by the hand and help them uncover hidden pockets of gold as well as promote our Smart Protection Network initiative," he added.

He said the event would discuss its alliances with VMware and Cisco and Apple. Trend micro is going to provide an iPhone based product for Apple to protect users browsing the net and falling prey to a fake website designed to steal thier passwords and ID.

He also said Trend Micro has, an as yet unnamed product, to coincide with VMsafe launched at the end of the month, to protect that platform.

He said it is something 'very exciting' which will present a lot of 'new opportunities to resellers as there is only one other product on the market'.

The Trened Micro Security Challenge Series Reseller session was held at Sheraton on the Park hotel in Sydney today, 29th April.