Specialist cyber security distributor Chillisoft, is gearing up to forward with its exclusive New Zealand deal with California-based cloud security and compliance vendor Qualys.On the back of Qualys' shift from a mixed go-to-market model with both direct and indirect customers and partners to a new pure channel model, Chillisoft has agreed to get several of its engineers certified and is now providing free health checks to every Qualys customer in New Zealand."These customers are responding very well and when we find new opportunities, we are moving those deals to Qualys certified partners who are also getting trained up and are very grateful of the new go-to-market model," Chillisoft CEO Alex Teh told Reseller News.The "trust" factor for Qualys was extremely high in NZ, Teh said, with a lot of new prospects and partners signing up.Qualys delivered an enterprise-grade vulnerability and management platform with patch management and assets management via the same console and the same end-point, setting it apart from other vendors, Teh said."With Chillisoft in country support and the partners that we have I believe there is a bright future for the Qualys channel in NZ," he said. "Partners are getting new customers given to them and they are bringing us new customers. It's a good win/win for all parties."Qualys' managing director for A/NZ, Sam Salehi, said because a significant part of the NZ market was small and medium businesses, its managed security service provider (MSSP) model was gaining interest because such organisations often don't want to or are not able to self-manage often disparate cyber security tools. To support that demand, Qualys was investing in its MSSP partner programme and its Enterprise TruRisk Management Platform as a key enabler."We are becoming a favoured partner for MSPs because we don't compete with our service provider partners," Salehi said. "Rather we generate 100 per cent of our revenue through selling product." A cornerstone of this approach was its MSSP (multi-tenancy) partner portal, launched earlier this year, that allows MSSP's to manage multiple end customers through a single-sign-on console."It also includes the ability to orchestrate bulk actions, such as one to many, across multiple customers and drive operational efficiencies at scale," Salehi said.Qualys MSSP partners enjoy greater Qualys commercial benefits in the form of product discounts, and access to other benefits such as market development funding to support the increased investment they may need to make in training and certifications."This means the MSSP has the product knowledge to design, implement, manage and support the end customers," Salehi said. Qualys already has a small number of MSSP partners in NZ and was seeing significant interest from existing value added reseller partners to invest in becoming a MSSP partner and deliver more profitable, value-adding professional and managed services.Salehi joined Qualys from Trustwave in May.
