EEye Touts Changes Under Ex-Citrix Channel Chief Brown

The introduction of version 3.0 of eEye's REM Security Management console is the first product announcement from the Aliso Viejo, Calif., vendor since the Sept. 6 appointment of Ross Brown to COO. Brown reinvigorated Citrix Systems' channel program during his three-year tenure there, expanding rebate and incentive programs while upping rewards for top resellers.

REM 3.0 does a better job of organizing security data collected by eEye's two primary security products, Retina and Blink, said Mike Puterbaugh, senior director of product marketing. Retina performs more than 1,700 vulnerability audits on a network and generates mountains of data that can be intimidating if not organized properly, he said. Blink is eEye's network behavior-triggered network attack prevention product. Both products feed in a collaborative fashion into REM 3.0, which has been improved to display security information grouped together by a common device, he said. The upgrade is included with customers' current maintenance fees.

"When you start to create daily scans with Retina you are going to create a lot of data, and in the past it has been easy to start to lose context of what all the data really means," said Puterbaugh. "So we went from a laundry-list approach to reporting to more of an asset-level approach."

To eEye's reseller partners, Brown said to expect changes to the vendor's channel program in January that will make selling its security products "much more lucrative." Some of the changes will come in the way that deal registration is rewarded, said Brown, who referred to similar changes he made at Citrix three years ago as evidence his plan will work. EEye will also add a new distribution partner within weeks and use its expanded distribution channel to recruit new solution provider partners, he said.

Brown said he has already reassigned eEye's telemarketing organization to a group that focuses more on telephone-based partner sales support. Currently, eEye has only about 20 partners that Brown would call truly productive and he wants to see that number increase to about 250 a year from now. "What's been missing is a full-on press with the channel," he said.

Improvement to eEye's partner program has already become evident under Brown's guidance, said Paul Graffeo, co-founder and vice president of sales and marketing at Red Bull Technologies, Atlanta. An eEye reseller for the past three years, Red Bull is essentially located "in the backyard" of one of eEye's fiercest competitors, Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems (ISS), said Graffeo. But under Brown, eEye has already stepped up with more field and marketing support for Red Bull, helping it to maintain traction for eEye products in ISS territory, said Graffeo.

"The change to [eEye's] channel have already been huge," said Graffeo.

Red Bull can package and resell eEye's products in appliance form, making them easier to administrate for certain customers, said Graffeo. The improvements delivered in REM 3.0 take ease of administration another step further, he said. "It gives you a better glass-bottom view of risk to the network," said Graffeo.