Kaspersky Lab Boosts Channel With Rewards, Protection

Executives said that with this latest version of the Green Team launch, the company was "committed to enhancing and optimizing."

"We wanted to put more meat in it," said Kristin Capone, Kaspersky vice president of North American channel sales.

One of the channel tweaks includes a new business discount rewards program, which provides partners specific financial incentives around new customer acquisitions.

Also included in the channel changes is a revised customer account registration -- which executives say is the online component of the company's deal registration -- allowing partners with an approved business plan to register protection for specific customer accounts.

"It's rewarding partners in areas that are heavily penetrated in significant accounts," Capone said.

The channel revisions will also enable partners to have access to customized and co-branded software downloads, intended to reduce the time and effort required for customer trials.

The Moscow-based antivirus company also made changes to its training portal, Kaspersky University, with new regional and online training modules.

"Our goal was to really enable our partners to be self-sufficient," Capone said. "Education helps them become that."

The channel revisions come at a time when Kaspersky is attempting to make strategic inroads into midmarket and enterprise accounts. And executives said that some of the tweaks, such as the customer account registration and new business discount rewards components, will help Kaspersky partners as they further target the enterprise.

However, executives contend that the driving force behind the changes wasn't necessarily to help prepare the channel to target larger accounts.

"This program wasn’t necessarily designed with an SMB or enterprise focus in mind," Capone said. "The driving force was to be able to go to market and reward partners that are making significant investments in Kaspersky today," she said, adding "It's making them successful and giving them the tools that they need that are so important."