NetIQ Eases Up-Front Cost Of Using Tool To Assess Security Risks

Under the Security Analyzer Consulting Program, NetIQ partners can purchase licenses for NetIQ's Security Analyzer software on a per-engagement basis rather than paying up-front annual licensing fees, said Mark Marron, senior vice president of worldwide sales at NetIQ, San Jose.

"You can do the assessment, understand where the holes are, and then there could be additional services work for you," Marron said. "There may be additional products to sell with services around those new products as well. It's a cumulative business."

For $2,500, qualified solution providers receive a one-year membership to the program as well as product manuals, joint marketing support and a guide to building a vulnerability assessment practice. Partners then log on to a portal to purchase and download a 30-day software key whenever they need to use the software in a client engagement.

Pricing ranges from $3 to $8 per monitored node, depending on volume discounts, according to NetIQ.

Previously, NetIQ negotiated Security Analyzer license fees with solution providers on a case-by-case basis, with prices ranging from $7 to $60 per node

for a one-year license. A separate license was required for each engagement, NetIQ said.

Vulnerability assessment tools from NetIQ and other security vendors typically require payment of $10,000 to $25,000 in up-front licensing fees, according to Richard Kurtz, business development manager at 4Front Systems, a Morrisville, N.C.-based network integrator that joined the program.

"There has always been a yearly fee that was pretty doggone high, so you had to have a large pipeline of customers in place," Kurtz said.

To offset the high license fees, solution providers have to charge more for vulnerability assessments than some customers are willing to pay, he said.

"We can now charge more competitive economic pricing for doing the assessment where before we weren't able to," Kurtz said.

4Front expects to perform at least 12 vulnerability assessments this year, Kurtz said. Typically, he expects to do about four per year.