Kaspersky Lab says it has has signed up 1000 managed service providers to its specialist MSP partners programme in less than a year. The channel support will be a boon to a Russian company that has seen its products banned from US government agencies following "spying" fears.
The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) also advised the UK government against using Kaspersky products. Since then, the geopolitical situation between Russia and the West has been ramped up over government and corporate spying allegations tabled against Russia. Earlier this week, Kaspersky confirmed that it would be moving many of its core software development and customer management and service functions out of Russia and into Switzerland, to try and dampen publicity around any alleged ties the company has or had with the Russian regime. Kaspersky has always denied any links to the Russian regime.
But the good news is that Kaspersky says it had 1000 MSP registered partners in February 2018. The vast majority of these partners – 95% - are located in Europe, with companies from the Benelux (34%), France (28%) and the Nordics (16%) leading the way in the region.
Kaspersky research from last year, showed that 51% of MSPs believed that cybersecurity for IT operations was the main trend to affect the MSP market over the “next three to five years”.
QNS in the Netherlands received a 1000th Partner Award from Kaspersky Lab. Toine van Bilsen, owner of QNS, said: “Customers can rely on us to provide a perfect insight into the status of all of their endpoints with the help of Kaspersky Security Center. In addition, we can access professional support in our local language in case we encounter any problems.”
Managed service providers registered in the programme have the opportunity to choose between cloud and on-premises endpoint protection, depending on customer needs.
Adam Maskatiya, general manager at Kaspersky Lab UK, said: “We’re proud that we’ve gained the MSP community’s trust and will continue to work with our partners to provide Kaspersky Lab’s award-winning products. This year will see us significantly expand our offerings to service providers, with a focus on the enterprise market.”
