WatchGuard eXeeds in New Zealand

Auckland-headquartered eXeed is an IT distributor focused on the HP brand and offers specialist skills in pre-sales configuration support in all HP hardware categories including storage, servers, mobility and printing solutions.

Scott Robertson, regional director A/NZ, WatchGuard told CRN eXeed has around 1,000 resellers in its value added distributor network and provides ongoing training, pre-sales tech support, co-marketing and joint sales efforts.

“eXeed is a leading HP distributor with great coverage, both in depth of relationships and breadth of contacts, into the NZ channel. We see the WatchGuard security products complementing their HP storage, server and blade business allowing their channel partners to deliver more secure solutions and adding value to their business,” he said.

According to Robertson, the vendor has the following distributors in Australia - Distribution Central and WhiteGold Solutions. In New Zealand, distributors include eXeed and Packet Engines. The vendor also has over 30 WatchGuard Secure Partners with a channel of several hundred.

“We have some of the best security distributors in the market so we’re quite comfortable with our existing model. The area we see growing is in our WatchGuard Secure Partner Program (WSPP). We have a very loyal channel committed to WatchGuard technology however our programs have not always recognised the local market conditions,” said Robertson.

Robertson claimed that in 2008 the vendor introduced an Associate Level to its WSPP program. This will provide easier access for WatchGuard resellers to many of the benefits gained from the program. These include access to its partner portal including the latest sales and marketing tools, local contacts to assist with sales opportunities and access to the Customer Renewal Tool which is like an online CRM for partners to manage customer activations.

“In the last 10 months we have more than doubled our investment in staff and support across ANZ and this will continue in 2008. Recently we also signed Emcorp IT, Technologies 2000, OPC IT Limited, ACKS, as new reseller partners,” he said.

WatchGuard’s Firebox network security appliances use application proxy firewall technology. Packet filtering firewalls inspect only the top three to four layers of the OSI communication model (physical, datalink, network, and transport), leaving another three to four layers without any inspection, and thus vulnerable to exploitation.

“Using an application proxy firewall technology, WatchGuard’s Firebox solutions inspect all seven layers of the OSI communication model including the session, presentation, and application layers that the packet filtering firewalls leave untouched,” said Robertson.

distribution security watchguard exeed