SimpleWan, which makes an offering that combines several different security and network monitoring functions, has found that the increasingly converged market warrants their development of a new channel to address customer purchasing habits.

Phoenix-based SimpleWan, which makes a unique cloud solution which combines cybersecurity, firewall, SD-WAN and network monitoring, has announced that it is broadening out its channel into Master Agent services. Brian Purdue, formerly a National Channel Manager at Mitel, has been appointed Director of Channel Sales at SimpleWan to develop this Master Agent channel.

“Before our launch of the master agent channel program, we were primarily wholesale, selling to VARs and white box players,” Purdue said. “We are now playing on both sides of the channel.”

Purdue said that Master Agents are playing more of a role in SimpleWan’s business because of the industry-wide shift which has seen many traditional VARs move over to add MSP services.

“There has also been a massive shift of traditional telco channel agents transitioning to VARs and MSPs, especially as the cloud has also been taking off on the master agent side as well,” he added.

“Master agents don’t do a lot of selling,” he said. “It’s their subagents, the VARs and MSPs, who are the salespeople who do that. Master agents bring value to the process, but their value is in their buying power, as they are able to get much better prices than their subagents.”

The multi-faceted nature of SimpleWAN’s product also led the company to broaden its channel out. Purdue indicated that customers are more likely to look to the Agent channel and the kind of services they provide for networking monitoring and SD-WAN, while still looking at traditional hardware resellers for cyber security and firewall.

“We can now address both sides of this converging market,” he said.

While SimpleWan’s product has been on the market for years, the company itself is relatively new.

“The product has been around for eight years,” Purdue said. “It was developed when what became SimpleWAN was part of a hosted PBX provider.” Two years ago, the PBX provider was acquired. and this new company was spun out.”

The company’s product was initially focused on voice optimization.

“Our initial channel was typically hosted voice providers because of our algorithm for voice optimization,” Purdue said. “From there, we grew as our customers evolved, and added the SD WAN, cybersecurity and HIPAA PCI compliance. We manage customers nationwide from a single dashboard.”

Their customers are typically branch locations, with between 2 and 100 people.