Security vendor, Websense, is launching a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) program for up to 10 partners.
Websense senior marketing manager, David Brophy, said the new invite-only program revolved around ‘Triton’, a solution that merges web security, data loss prevention and e-mail security products.
“It’s quite a big partnership to have with Websense and it’ll be done on a case-by-case basis,” he said. “We’re bringing on about five in Australia for the first rollout. They’ll do well over $1 million in business with us each year.
“Later on, we’ll look at other strategic partners because we have ones that don’t sell a great deal, but they have really good relationships with customers.”
Brophy said key benefits for partners would be increased marketing and development training as well as brand recognition.
“We'll give them access to training and certification around our data security products, Web security gateway products and they get the ability to get recognised as industry leaders,” he said.
The initial five partners will have to hit the ground running with Brophy planning to get them working immediately. He added they were in advanced discussions with IBM as a potential partner. Websense has more than 100 partners in the market.
“It comes down to their ability to deliver - they can host this technology within their premises. It also comes down to their access and install base and the degree of training and certification they can provide to their customers,” he said. “For now it will be definitely restricted to platinum or gold partners.
“Once we get the first five up to speed and they’re trained and certified, we’ll start to open this up to other partners,” Brophy said.
But Brophy assured potential partners he wasn’t looking to start cutting the numbers before the program was underway and would put lenient initial requirements in place. He also encouraged partners to approach the vendor for more information about being invited.
“We won’t actually set targets specifically to these MSSPs just yet,” he said.
