Just a few months after introducing an enterprise version of its BeAware workplace activity monitoring software, Ascentive has launched a channel program that offers partners up to a 50 percent margin for deals registered in the first 90 days of their participation.

Any VAR can get a 20 percent discount from the list price, said Alan Schran, CEO of the Philadelphia-based company. VARs can get another 10 percentage points when they register the deal, and they receive another 20 percent for deals they register in their first 90 days as an Ascentive VAR.

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The software, initially introduced eight years ago to the consumer market as a tool to help parents monitor their children's Internet use, tracks a user's computer activity, including Web sites visited, what applications are running, e-mails sent and received, and chat sessions. It can also send alerts when it detects certain activities.

For example, the software can alert employers when workers use inappropriate keywords on their computers, immediately bringing the activity to the employer's attention, according to Ascentive.

As companies are under more pressure to increase margins and protect proprietary information, such a solution is gaining appeal.

"We had our consumer software out there and started getting inquiries from companies that were looking for a corporate version," Schran said. After a year of development, "we were able to pick up a bunch of initial orders from these people. We were selling directly."

Schran is expecting the VAR program to boost the company's sales. He said that so far it has met or exceeded expectations but declined to quantify those.

"It reaches out to another part of the marketplace," he said. "There are companies who only want to go through their VAR."

Some companies may find the value proposition compelling. Schran said that studies have shown that employees waste 2.1 hours online every day. That wasted time drops dramatically when the BeAware product is deployed, he said.

"Especially if they tell employees it is there," he said. "One company put the software on their network, told employees, and their Internet usage dropped by 90 percent. It saved them thousands of dollars in terms of not having to buy an additional T1 line."

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