Permeo Technologies
Direct relationships with some large enterprise accounts will keep Permeo from ever becoming 100 percent indirect, St. Martin said. But the goal for the next year is to work closely with the channel to build increased traction in the upper midmarket, he said.
For the senior executives of Permeo Technologies, an embrace of channel principles was not the result of some lightning-bolt epiphany. That’s because the belief that VARs offered the right sales model for the budding security company was already there, said Michael St. Martin, director of worldwide sales at the company.
Launched four years ago as a spin-off from NEC’s research group and the brainchild of founder Wei Lu, the industry luminary credited with the development of the SOCKSv5 firewall protocol, Permeo has carved out a unique space in the remote-access market by rethinking the way SSL VPN networks authenticate traffic. Unlike many VPNs that just form an encrypted pipe from client to server, Permeo’s Base5 enterprise remote-access software shakes down incoming clients to make sure they fit a baseline security profile, then monitors their sessions with the capability to restrict unauthorized copying, storing or printing.
’We are very different from all our competitors. And for resellers working with an organization, they can think of us as the next generation of SSL and end-point security,’ St. Martin said.
A private company backed by powerhouse investors, including Austin Ventures, Sierra Ventures and even NEC, Permeo sells a majority of its Base5 software through the channel, St. Martin said. Permeo CEO Michael Bennett, CFO Steve Odom and St. Martin each worked for Houston-based Mission Critical Software before and after it was acquired by and became San Jose, Calif.-based NetIQ in 2000, he said.
’Those companies had very successful channel programs,’ St. Martin said of Mission Critical and NetIQ.
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Sporting about 30 VAR partners and eager to see that number continue to grow, Austin, Texas-based Permeo also moves Base5 through an OEM deal with NEC and a relationship with SBC Communications subsidiary Sterling Commerce, a Dublin, Ohio-based provider of collaboration solutions, St. Martin said.