Robust roadmap of new products will see continuing rapid growth
Malwarebytes is expanding: it has added 300 people in the last year or so, and has a “robust roadmap” with new products coming out in the next few months, says Anthony O'Mara, EMEA VP
“We will be launching a new range of products so growth will be driven even more by this; we are exclusively two tier channel and this is paying off. Our existing distributor: Kite Distribution, Infinigate and Nuvias have been good for us.”
Biggest competitor it has is where customers say “we already have an AV system”;
“Once we can see what they are using, we can show how much more [viruses and malware] we are blocking; on average they let 20% more through than us – not all malicious certainly, but a demo can show the reality. We tell them they need a layered approach.”
SMBs are getting hit and are reliant on their resellers telling them what to do, he says. The customers lack understanding and need help; but a lot of the channel have a nice renewal stream from a traditional vendor and rely on it, even though it is not coping and it is no longer enough. “We get a lot of sales like that. And remediation is a big thing with us; we are very strong and able to remove it very fast.”
“We launched a channel programme which is different from other security vendors. They reward retrospectively, however, so I flip that and work with the channel on the basis of rewarding them for the leads they bring us, not the final sales or whether they close the deal. This works well. We saw a 33% rise in resellers registering with us since launch, and we have added about 25%-30% new customers that we did not have on the system. “
“They bring leads of over 100 seats and we qualify them – they are not just pulled from yellow pages or equivalent. We qualify it and work with them –we reckon we close some 45% of leads from resellers. If we can get to a customer with a demo, this goes up to 60% plus. We are doing a lot of outbound, webinars and similar, taking topics into our existing base. We have 8000 registered resellers in Europe, though not all trading all the time. The new products are going well and we feel positive.”
UK is growing at about 100% a quarter; now it needs to get this working at a similar level in France. “The distributors are investing in Europe, so we expect this to rise. In 2018 we expect to start adding people in new regions such as Spain and the Nordics which are currently handled centrally in Europe. We have distribution there, but run from headquarters in Ireland. “
“SMBs buy from a trusted reseller, and we are getting traction with the larger resellers in the UK; there has been a lot of consolidation and M&A in the sector. We invest a lot in training, as you expect, and it is growing more into sales rather than technical.”
Malwarebytes will probably have a strong play in managed services in the next 4-6 months where we see demand, and we see it in other territories.