ESET has had an exclusive relationship with Ingram Micro in Canada since 2017, and has extended that with the availability of solutions in Ingram’s Cloud Marketplace, particularly of their PROTECT bundled offerings which were introduced in 2020.
Cam Leetham, director of channel sales and alliances for ESET North America
Cybersecurity vendor ESET has announced that their business-focused protection bundles, notably their ESET PROTECT Cloud series, are now available on the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace. This will apply in both Canada and the U.S., although ESET’s relationship with Ingram Micro is exclusive in Canada, while in the U.S., ESET also works with TDSYNNEX and with D&H.
“This is a step forward in our exclusive relationship with ESET in Canada, and provides our channel partners with a powerful advantage in the market,” said Cam Leetham, Director of Channel Sales and Alliances at ESET North America.
While partners can also purchase directly from ESET if they choose, Leetham said that ESET has chosen to double down on the Ingram Micro relationship.
“My background is from both the vendor and distribution side, and I worked at Ingram for many years,” he indicated. “We have a lot of trust in them. The results with Ingram have been strong, so in Canada, we are aligned just to them, and are looking to them to accelerate our growth in Canada because they have been able to deliver.”
The focus of the ESET offerings in the Ingram Micro Cloud is the ESET Protect Cloud Series.
“We rebranded our products in December 2020, with new products specifically around cloud, like ESET Cloud Office Security standalone for Office 365, and we released a new suite of bundles, to give options on layers we provide within the bundle,” Leetham said. They are targeted at a broad range of business needs, ranging from home offices to SMBs, MSPs, and enterprises.
These cloud-based security bundles include ESET PROTECT Entry, an endpoint protection platform for file servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices, ESET PROTECT Advanced, a bundle that includes endpoint protection, a cloud sandbox and full disk encryption, and ESET PROTECT Complete, which includes all that is in the Advanced bundle, plus cloud applications protection. Another PROTECT solution is ESET PROTECT Mail Plus, which includes protection for email and a cloud sandbox.
Other ESET solutions are also available in Ingram Micro’s Cloud. ESET Dynamic Threat Defense is an add-on cloud sandbox available to all ESET Endpoint customers to protect against ransomware, targeted attacks, advanced persistent threats, zero-day attacks and other sophisticated malware schemes.
ESET Cloud Office Security provides advanced protection for Microsoft 365 applications, including spam filtering, anti-malware scanning and anti-phishing.
ESET Enterprise Inspector is an add-on Endpoint Detection and Response available for all ESET Endpoint customers that detects advanced persistent threats, stops fileless attacks, blocks zero-day threats, protects against ransomware and prevents company policy violations.
Other solutions available in the marketplace include: ESET Secure Authentication, a multi-factor authentication (MFA) tool; ESET Full Disk Encryption for disks, partitions and entire drives; ESET Mail Security for Linux Server blocks all spam and malware at the server level before they reach users’ mailboxes; and ESET Security for Microsoft Sharepoint Server provides protection for all Microsoft Sharepoint products.
None of these solutions have been available in the Ingram Marketplace before.
“Even though we have been doing very well with Ingram, there was some integration work that needed to be done, particularly to allow a global integration,” Leetham indicated. “We had an offering before for SMBs with a seat size limitation of 250 seats. With these offerings, we have greatly increased the available seat count.”
ESET was a relatively latecomer to the cloud in cybersecurity, but today their cloud business is growing at a very strong pace.
“Until this year, we were selling primarily on-prem solutions, but we are seeing both new and existing customers moving to cloud in a hockey stick effect,” Leetham said. “Office 365 penetration is a significant reason for this.”
Leetham sees ESET as well positioned in a shifting cybersecurity market, in which several traditional market leaders have declined significantly, while new entrants from the higher end of the market are also selling to some of the same customer segment.
“We are very proud of the fact we have private ownership, and our founders are still the owners,” he stated. “A lot of other companies in our area have been affected by consolidation and ownership changes, and that brings opportunity. We have seen a lot of resellers looking for alternatives for other vendors who we have been selling against, and we have to take advantage of that. It’s a very competitive market, however, and we are working hard with Ingram and our partners to take advantage of that.
“One of the things Ingram has invested in in the last year is a security-focused business unit, and that plays very well with MSPs and VARs who may not have a security focus, in building up that business,” Leetham added. “ESET has invested in a funded sales resource within the Ingram Business Unit this year going into 2022.”
Leetham said new ESET solutions are also on the horizon.
“Somewhere around the end of Q1, look for ESET to expand on the announcements that we are making now, with new solutions,” he indicated.
