Emerging Vendors

March 18, 2009

Company: Purewire

Headquarters: Atlanta

Technology Sector: Security

Key Product: Purewire Web Security Service

Year Founded: 2007

Number of Channel Partners: 30 in North America

Ideal Channel Partner: Enterprise-focused solution providers

Why You Should Care: Purewire offers channel partners an opportunity to resell or self-brand Web security offerings that feature advanced antimalware capabilities.

The Lowdown: With unemployment numbers swelling, it's likely that a large number of small companies will be formed by those recently unemployed. Purewire's Michael Van Bruinisse is among those who believe those companies will look to cloud computing to get started instead of investing in on-premise infrastructure. He hopes the company's Web security service will be part of those plans.

"We've already been contacted, especially by some old IBM folks who are looking to take advantage of their Rolodexes. Our product fits well with no up-front investment," said Van Bruinisse, co-founder, president and COO of the Atlanta-based company.

Purewire's solution works like this: When a Purewire end user goes to the Web, a request

Purewire Web Security

comes into Purewire's data centers. Purewire goes out to the Web site first to check for viruses and malware, and to make sure the site fits with the access policies of the company, Van Bruinisse said.

"This space has been doing basic Web filtering for years, URL filtering. We found the issue to be that [others] were not doing a lot of looking for advanced malware. Companies were still getting malware through the Web. We do all the things a Websense can do, but we've added advanced malware techniques," he said.

Purewire touches the channel on two fronts: enterprise-focused solution providers, who bring in cloud-based Web security as part of their overall hardware and software solution, and SMB-focused managed service providers who add Purewire to their MSP offering.

Purewire's customer base ranges from three users up to Fortune 500, Van Bruinisse said. "On the SMB side, we built the product so it can be branded and provisioned by partners. Primarily we've been going through MSPs that have an aggregation of small and medium customers that they've been selling to and are looking to increase their monthly revenue rates. They add us in as the Web security solution, branded with their own name," he said. "On the other side, it has expanded on the Fortune 500 side. A lot of partners have been getting calls from their enterprise customers. They've been asked to bring us in to address their secure Web gateway."