Facing mounting competition from larger rivals and smaller upstarts,
Trend Micro has reorganized its software security offerings into new
suites designed to make it easier for resellers to select and sell.
Trend Micro today launched Enterprise Security Suite, Enterprise
Security for Endpoints and Mail Servers, Enterprise Security for
Endpoints and Enterprise Security for Gateways. Each suite provides
various features and levels of protection tailored to specific needs of
end user environments. Each suite shares a common management console
and is powered and supplemented by the Trend Micro Smart Protection
Network, the vendor’s Web-based system for collecting intelligence and
disseminating protection updates.
“It was designed to make it easier to do business with us,” says
Vern Shure, a Trend Micro product manager. “It’s easier to get a handle
on what we have and what needs to be sold to the customer.”
No one suite in the Trend Micro enterprise portfolio provides
comprehensive security for end users, and that’s part of the strategy.
Given an end user’s need for security and specific applications, they
may only need the endpoint suite which include antivirus and spyware
protections for desktops, file servers and mobile devices. Others may
only need gateway security, and that suite includes messaging security
and Web filtering security applications.
The Enterprise Security Suite provides the most feature sets,
including modules for desktop, mail servers and Web gateways. However,
it doesn’t include security applications for IM and collaboration
servers; those are covered under the separate Enterprise Security for
Communications and Collaboration suite.
The suite system was designed because many VARs and Trend Micro
resellers didn’t know the full breadth of the vendor’s security
applications, how they could be integrated and how to position them for
sale against competitive offerings. The new suite packages resolve most
of those issues, says Shawn Murphy, Trend Micro’s vice president of
North America sales and channels.
“The suites make it easier to explain, so now we can have
conversations about the technology and not just the business
impediments,” Murphy says.
The Enterprise Suites became available today and Trend Micro is in
the process of disseminating sales and training information to
resellers partners. Murphy expects to see sales trend up beginning as
soon as March and continue through the year.
Trend Micro isn’t clear on anticipated average sale prices of the
suites or if they will result in higher sale prices and margins for
resellers. The company’s expectation is that ASPs and margins will be
higher through suite sales. Murphy also expects resellers will have a
higher degree of success selling the suites to both existing and
competitors’ customers.
Trend Micro, the world’s third largest security software vendor, is
under increasing competitive pressure as rivals Symantec and McAfee, as
well as upstart security vendors, look to steal share in core product
offerings, such as antivirus. Kaspersky Lab, the Russia-based security
software vendor, has publicly stated its goal of surpassing Trend Micro
in gross global market share in 2010.