WatchGuard aggressively targets SME rivals with “swapsies”

The firm has enhanced its trade-in programme to cover more rival products from Fortinet, Barracuda, SonicWALL and even low-end Check Point and Cisco devices.
As Mark Romano, WatchGuard’s worldwide director of channel and field marketing explains: “Even though the programme has been not running long, trades across Europe are up 20 percent and growing.”

WatchGuard has also improved the support side for MSPs, with the firm now offering spare units to allow partners to instantly swap out misbehaving devices instead of delays as units are RTB and to help partners reduce inventory cost for unproductive spare appliances.
Leasing
The firm is also finalising leasing partners across Europe: “There is a lot of interest in leasing and we have some agreements in place in other parts of Europe and the UK is an area we are now focusing on” comments Romano who believes that a leasing partner could be in place within the next six months.

The firm has also launched a cloud-based anti-malware service, the new Reputation Enabled Defense, which is a result of its acquisition of Borderware and combines licensed technology services from Kaspersky Lab to boost protection against viruses, malware, spyware, keyloggers, botnets and other web-based threats.

The system also blocks known malware before it even reaches a clients site which further reduces the workload for the onsite WatchGuard XTM or XCS security appliances. The new system can be retrofitted, for free, to any client who has bought current generation WatchGuard appliance and subscribed to its maintenance programme. The firm claims it is the first and only security vendor to have full URL reputation services integrated with its multifunction, next-generation firewalls costs around £150 a year per device.

WatchGuard has around 70 active partners in the UK and is 100 percent channel through distribution agreements with Wick Hill, Sphinx, Northamber and Ingram Micro.