CA Helps VARs Fight Retail Invaders With Onsite PC Protection

A new program called Onsite PC Protection was designed to equip the "Geek Squads" of the world with an Internet portal they can use on-site at a customer's home or SOHO location to download and install CA's consumer PC security products, said George Kafkarkou, senior vice president of consumer and SMB sales for CA, Islandia, N.Y.

The service officially goes live September 5.

The Onsite PC Protection portal delivers products and acts as a diagnostic and reporting platform, said Kafkarkou. Without having to buy and warehouse CA products inventory ahead of time, on-site PC support businesses such as Geeks On Call America, Norfolk, Va., and OnSiteHelp, Newmarket, Ontario, can visit a customer's location, use the portal to scan the PC for problems, generate a report, and then download and install products such as CA's eTrust PestPatrol, Anti-Spam, EZ Antivirus, Desktop DNA, and Internet Security Suite, he said.

Both Geeks On Call and OnSiteHelp are aboard with the new offering.

By not having to crack open a CA product box and place a disk in a PC drive in front of the customer, a home technician's value is enhanced because the on-site service appears to be something that the customer could not have done themselves, explained Kafkarkou.

"It's a rich environment that the technician brings into the home," he said. "We enrich the value that the service providers deliver to the home user and small business."

The portal can be co-branded by home technicians, he said. Membership in the program requires a one-time $100 fee, and commissions on sales are deposited directly into a Visa debit card given to members at the time they join, he said. Members bill their own customers.

Upon joining the program, members receive $1,500 worth of free CA software, according to CA.