French Security Company Seeks U.S. Channel Partners

A small French security software company is trying to make it big in America by enlisting channel partners to market its endpoint security products.

SkyRecon Systems, with U.S. headquarters in San Jose, Calif., has a channel-only sales strategy, and it has already recruited three channel partners to create awareness of the brand here, said Gary Calderon, the company’s U.S. director of sales.

Flush with a $6.5 million cash infusion from investors, the company is actively recruiting partners as it prepares its U.S. launch.

The vendor is promising solution providers margins of 15 percent to 35 percent with sales of its StormShield endpoint security software, which protects against denial-of-service attacks, theft and data destruction through viruses and user action.

Calderon said the vendor is assembling a team of systems engineers and inside sales people to support its partners in the United States. Their current focus is to create demand in the market for the software.

“We’re just trying to get the pipeline built so we can have leads for our new channel partners,” Calderon said.

StormShield, according to SkyRecon, uses a single agent to address all aspects of endpoint protection, from intrusion prevention to application and device control, to content encryption.

The single-agent technology is appealing to end-user customers, who typically don’t want to load their end points with multiple agents, said Joe Fernandez, executive vice president of Axcelerate Networks, of San Jose, Calif., one of the three partners SkyRecon has enlisted.

Fernandez called StormShield a cost-effective, all-in-one security solution that is easy to manage. Axcelerate has been demonstrating the software to customers and expects to make its first sale within a month, Fernandez said.

Calderon said in addition to the profit margin potential, SkyRecon’s channel program will include sales and pre-sales training, up-sell opportunities and lead generation. The vendor also will work to manage coverage density to avoid competition between partners and margin erosion, he said.