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Kaspersky Lab has seen double-digit growth for endpoint security software despite economic pressures that are shrinking the market, according to Kaspersky executives addressing channel partners at its Kaspersky Lab 6th Annual North American Partner Conference held in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Kaspersky Lab has maintained double-digit growth, coming in with 10 percent growth for the sixth year in a row, while the growth rate for the security market has been slowing down, Kaspersky North America President Steve Orenberg told channel partners today. Orenberg said the company has focused on its core endpoint security product, ensuring that it offers comprehensive data protection and is easy to deploy and manage, while investing in a robust threat research team that is constantly finding and dissecting new and more sophisticated cyberattacks.
"We're a security company that is very focused on endpoint security," Orenberg told about 150 channel partners Friday. "We build very robust endpoint protection technology and we're not trying to broaden our portfolio with other security technologies; that's not what we do."
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Orenberg said the company's channel partners were a key part of its growth. The company announced new incentives under its channel program at the conference. Its SE2SE Program, a monthly education series on technical topics, will reward pre-sales systems engineers who pass an exam following the online program. Those who pass will be eligible for a bonus payout for sales they influence from $25 to $200 per deal. The security firm is also adding short-term enticements for partners, doubling its incentive payments to all Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Businesses, Advanced and Total platform sales through March 31. The Kaspersky lead-generation program will also receive an increased investment in 2013 to increase sales leads.
The theme of the partner conference, "Breaking Away," is a reference, according to Orenberg, to Kaspersky Lab's increase in market share against its competitors, Symantec, McAfee, Sophos and Trend Micro. The company is going to have some challenges ahead as it tries to reposition its channel program to move up the market into the larger enterprise space, said Pete Lindstrom, principal and vice president of research for Spire Security. Lindstrom said the company has built on its antimalware base, bolting on virtual intrusion detection and prevention, full disk encryption and adding data loss prevention capabilities.
"Their endpoint security play is strong on the consumer side and SMB side," Lindstrom said. "They'll have to figure out what they want to be if they want to further position themselves against the big boys and get a broader piece of the big market."
