Kaz, Symantec partner on SMB security services

Kaz and Symantec have partnered on a new services agreement which will see the two companies move deeper into the upper SMB security market.

Kaz and Symantec have partnered on a new services agreement which will see the two companies move deeper into the upper SMB security market.

The five year deal will see Kaz gain exclusive access to Symantec’s Global Consulting Services portfolio.

Specifically, Kaz now offers Symantec’s Managed Desktop Antivirus, Email Gateway Security and Managed Secure Web Content Filtering services.

Symantec APAC VP David Sykes, said the deal was aimed at making the most of the current selective outsourcing trend.

He said with the rising cost of managing network security, upper mid-market organisations were now looking for a standardised mix of security services with fixed SLAs for known costs.

“The market is still buoyant but we are looking beyond corporate and government corporate but replicable and accessible solutions are needed for SMEs,” Sykes said.

With 9000 users of its hosted and CPE platforms, and 200,000 desktops under management, Kaz MD Mike Foster said the services integrator would initially look toward its own customer base as both a test-bed and primary opportunity for its new offering.

To date Kaz had transition about 9000 of its customers over to the new Symantec services, Foster said.

With about 300 security cleared staff, Kaz was in a strong position to use the services to grow its relationships with corporate and governemnt clients, he said.

“There is a related opportunity with the [Federal Government’s] health ID card, so we are positioning ourselves as a premium partner for those sorts of things," Foster said.

The services would also lay the way for Kaz’s plans to roll out a wider suite of software as a service (SAAS) applications such as managed email, he said.

However this would be contingent of Kaz’s ability to increase its data centre capacity following greater than expected demand for its hosting services, Foster said.

Sykes said Symantec would use the new partnership with Kaz as a model for the delivery of security services in other countries.