Immunet Dangles Freeware Today For A Payday Tomorrow

Company: Immunet

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

Technology Sector: Security

Key Product: Immunet Protect

Year Founded: 2008

Number of Channel Partners: 2 worldwide

Ideal Channel Partner: Small business-focused solution providers

Why You Should Care: Joining the distribution channel for Immunet's free antivirus software positions partners for next year's rollout of paid products and the attendant upselling opportunities.

The Lowdown:Immunet is a start-up that brings together top IT security specialists with backgrounds at such companies as Symantec, McAfee, Secure Networks and Cloudmark. Led by founder and CEO Oliver Friedrichs, the Immunet team believes that these days, using freeware to penetrate markets is the best model for selling antivirus software.

"The challenge of antivirus is that it's become a commodity. Charging for it is not going to be a long-term viable business. So our model is to give it away at the basic level, then upsell our customers to paid products that are more fully featured," Friedrichs said.

"We can offer our partners loyalty on the upsell to the premium product. Partners that join today and sell the free version of our product, they'll be able to join in on the paid product."

Immunet Protect

The young company still classifies its free Immunet Protect product as a beta, but Friedrichs said a paid version would be released early in 2010 And Immunet is hoping a distribution network of PC builders and software integrators comes along for the ride. The vendor already has one large distribution partner in Japanese IT security firm SecureBrain, which now offers its 3 million users the Immunet Protect Cloud Antivirus package.

"Because we're consumer-oriented, our channel would be consumer-oriented PC OEMs as well as ISPs. And we can build custom solutions for a particular user base," Friedrichs said, adding that the product for SecureBrain had been customized for the Japanese market.

Technologically, Immunet bills itself as a provider of "collective immunity for the Internet," leveraging "the growing power of social networks with community sharing features to defend entire communities of users in real-time against thousands of new threats generated every day."

Another selling point? The light footprint of Immunet Protect makes it ideal for devices like netbooks, according to Friedrichs. "We've been adopted by a lot of netbook owners, whereas some of the leaders in the security segment, their products are just too big," he said.

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