Symantec engages the community
I’ve just been along to the Kent SBS Group’s May meeting which went very well. It’s nice to be able to sit at the back of the audience and see someone else take on the responsibilities. Gareth (Johns) is doing an A1 job and is moving the group in the right direction with the support of the rest of the group.
Tonight, we were joined by James Baker (UK SMB Development Manager) and Lucy Armstrong (South England Account Manager) from Symantec. UK SBSC partners may remember them from the Microsoft Symposium held in February of this year. True to his promise, James has been addressing the gaping void between the big yellow box makers and the SMB market and part of his follow up is to approach regional groups who want to hear from them.
I helpfully brought along the projector but when there are no cables in the bag then there was nothing left but for the guys to ‘chalk and talk’ (their words, not mine) - memo to me: check that the last person who used the projector included the cables before you leave the office!
Historically there has never been a real connection between Symantec and the SMB market; no account manager for all partners and little or no communication from them to us. It seems that they’ve taken the feedback (no NFR software, difficult to contact, no relationship, great product suite etc…) and are wrapping it up into a new offering to our industry.
Symantec’s definition of ‘SMB’ is the 5-100 seat range and from top down, the focus is our arena and a quarter of their annual marketing will now be spent raising their profile and encouraging partners to sell. There seems to be plenty of opportunity but how are they going to achieve their 18% growth target?
It looks as though they are going to simplify the product range and communicate their messages to the community better. Did you know that there is a version of Backup Exec for SBS? Moreover, did you know that it’s available for you to sell to your client for £200+? - blame distribution if you hadn’t - it seems to be one of the best kept secrets! James has checked stock and there’s plenty of it to get your hands on!
New and simplified products will be released this June and September which is aimed at making our jobs easier. What’s more, many of them will compliment existing products that you may have in place such as McAfee and Trend. So for those who are unsure about Symantec and are using other alternative AV products, you do have the flexibility to compliment what you already use and test it out.
Look out for Symantec AV Starter Edition which will be launched on June 1st and comes with between 20%-30% discounts on the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price). You didn’t hear that from me right?!
With 70% of the world’s spam goes through Symantec, they certainly are big players in the AV market. However, they now want to be seen as a company that focusses not just on security, but also network manageability; take Ghost for example which has now taken on a corporate approach as well as the familiar home user package. More information on this can be found on www.ghost.com.
If your group would like to get Symantec down to talk (they even talk about secret software stuff which I’m not going to tell you about!) then I suggest you nudge James or Lucy - I’ve got their details to hand if you haven’t so just drop me an email.
There is also a partner portal available to Symantec Partners (easy enough to register to gain access) which can be found on http://partnernet.symantec.com.
Symantec are one of the key sponsors of the WWPC as well as SMB Nation so hopefully their investment marks a keen interest in developing the ‘phenomenal opportunity that exists’ in the SMB space?
P.S >> something that might be useful for you to translate into digestable bits for your clients can be found via the ‘Internet Security Threat Report’ which is produced twice a year by those in YellowBoxLand. It’s a bit chunky (Flash presentation available) but I’m sure there is plenty of facts to wow (or scare!) your clients with!