London – Bit9® + Carbon Black®, today announced continued explosive growth fuelled by accelerating demand for next-generation endpoint security solutions. Over the past year, Bit9 + Carbon Black increased endpoint software licence sales by 275%, grew its customer base by 66%, and increased channel sales by 310% worldwide.
The company also announced the launch of its new Channel Partner Accreditation Programme and the expansion of its presence across the UK, Nordics, Benelux, and Middle East. In 2015, Bit9 + Carbon Black is focusing investment on EMEA with a goal to triple revenues from Europe over the next 12 months. In order to support this, the company is expanding its current European channel by 25%, and launching a new accreditation programme to help more partners to deliver services, as well as opening a new local office and hiring on the ground staff.
The expansion is being driven by increased awareness of the need for next generation endpoint security that can help protect against advanced threats, and a move away from network-only security models. Bit9 + Carbon Black is targeting value-added resellers (VAR), managed security service providers (MSSP), incident response (IR) firms, and specialist security partners to help drive greater interest in its next generation endpoint security solutions. Bit9 merged with Carbon Black in February 2014, creating the only company that provides a complete integration solution for advanced threat endpoint prevention, detection and response against the myriad advanced threats facing today’s organisations.
Roy Pickard, Bit9 + Carbon Black’s recently appointed EMEA Channel Manager, comments: “The channel drives the majority of our new business now, which was not the case 12 months ago, and this is because we are seeing more partners seeing the business value of investing in endpoint security. This is because customers are pushing for an answer to the advanced threat problem. Enterprises are realising that their endpoints – data centres, servers, desktops, laptops and fixed function devices, such as point-of-sale (PoS) devices – are the real target for cybercriminals. As such, the network is not the target, the endpoint is. Endpoint security solutions need to enable businesses to not only prevent attacks from happening, but also detect if they have been compromised and respond in the likely event of a breach. Bit9 + Carbon Black is the only solution to provide this 360-degree security on the endpoint.”
Bit9 + Carbon Black is investing heavily in Europe to support its new partner drive and expansion. It has already opened a new UK office, and intends to treble the team over the course of the year. In addition to hiring Roy Pickard as its EMEA Channel Manager, David Flower joined as Managing Director for EMEA in 2014, and Ismet Geri as Senior Director EMEA Global Alliances, Business Development, as well as making a number of technical and sales appointments. The new team will be directly involved in building on Bit9 + Carbon Black’s established channel programme to create more recurring services revenues for partners through the provision of an accreditation programme.
Added to this, the company continues to expand its “Bit9 + Carbon Black Connect”, which integrates the Bit9 and Carbon Black solution with more than three dozen network security, analytics and SIEM, threat intelligence, and security service providers. The company has also announced that it is working with Microsoft to secure enterprise endpoints. This collaboration is the first advanced threat protection platform to integrate with Microsoft’s anti-malware and exploit prevention tools; based on this, there is a strong proposition for the channel to upsell and cross-sell value added services across a range of technology portfolios.
“Our focus is on partner identification and enablement and this is why we are launching the new accreditation programme; we want to provide greater incentives and stronger channel relationships,” Pickard continues. “All our revenues are processed through the channel. We provide deal registration and favourable margins, but there is also huge potential for delivering services. We are a product company, we don’t want to do services; this is why we are creating the new accreditation scheme to enable our partners to do so our behalf.”
The company currently operates a two tier channel model, with distribution from Exclusive Networks. It has existing partners in UK, Nordics, Benelux, and the Middle East. Barrie Desmond, Chief Operating Officer at Exclusive Networks, said: “There is certainly a big appetite at the moment for solutions that can defend against advanced threats which is driving increased interest in Bit9 + Carbon Black, as it provides the whole package – prevention, detection, and response. Nobody else in the market can do that. The big business for our VARs, MSSPs and Incident Response providers is really in the services. By providing Incident Response services, partners can really move up the value chain and benefit from repeatable recurring revenues, with 100% margins, so it’s very profitable. We already have partners doing this for Bit9 + Carbon Black, but the new accreditation will make that even easier.”
Kaynak : 