Traditional IT distribution doesn't “get” cloud delivery says the CEO of a small cloud email security business that is expanding into Europe.
Mailprotector, a cloud-based email security, management and hosting specialist, is launching in the UK and across EMEA and is 100% channel. The company offers a range of services, including email filtering, archiving, encryption and hosting, and is looking to build a network of 50+ channel partners in the UK by the end of 2015 and start on mainland Europe. Resellers can expect attractive margins, it says with aggregate pricing, and an opportunity to win business in an email market expected to top $12 billion worldwide by the end of this year and double over the next four years. But experience with broadline distribution in the US means it will not be using the big names in Europe, though a niche distributor is probable.
David Setzer, CEO and founder of Mailprotector, told IT Europa: “We have spent several years successfully building our business in the US, designing a platform and products from the ground up. There’s a huge opportunity today for cloud-based services, which are transforming the way security is delivered and consumed by organisations.”
The model is through the channel, not using it as an agency, but co-branding the service and with the partner doing the billing and primary support. And while it is “email everything”, Mailprotector tends not to step outside this main market by focusing on development using its own API to integrate with management tools. “Email is not dead, though we've been told it is since I started the business in 2000, ” he says.
His is a small company, even with its global ambitions – under twenty people and funded internally, and he is critical of large old-style firms which dominate the two tier channel “Old world distribution doesn't get the cloud idea. They still think in terms of product stocking and supply, whereas we see it as a utility model, with value in sales and marketing plus deep technical support. The new type of distributor gets it, but when Tech Data, for example, asks for $50k for a 20 second promo slot on their hold music, we understand what they are doing and why they need to charge vendors for such things. The landscape is changing, however,” says David Setzer.
Headed by Scott Tyson, Sales Director EMEA, Mailprotector has appointed EAC Network Solutions as one of its new partners in the UK. Earlier this year, Mailprotector signed up IT services provider Freelance Computers, and has also recruited additional resellers in the past month, he says.
The next step in Europe will probably be the Nordics where the main IT language is English; although obviously France and Germany will be on the list, and he sees opportunity also in places like Poland. By working in partnership with Amazon Web Services, he hopes by the year end to be able to offer local hosting of data, which is obviously important in some of these markets.