Cloud opportunity for resellers

Trade

Pictured: Computerlinks’ David Caughtry

Technology group Computerlinks is to distribute Google Enterprise’s software as a service (SaaS) security offerings in Ireland, the UK, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland.

The addition of Google Apps security services to its portfolio of SaaS offerings allows Computerlinks to create new opportunities for resellers looking to offer cloud services among their offerings.

The multinational arrangement will be managed through a single point of contact in Computerlinks’ e-business team in the UK.

Industry analyst Gartner predicts that by 2012 enterprise applications delivered by SaaS could generate $14.8 billion in revenue globally. This deal enables Computerlinks to tap this opportunity.

David Caughtry, director of e-business at Computerlinks said: “SaaS has gained ground over shelfware in business process areas such as customer relationship management and accountancy. We believe cloud services will continue to gain momentum across many business applications, so it’s vital to embrace this change.

“As a value-add distributor of security and internet products and services with global reach, we are confident that we can help drive revenue streams in new markets for our partners,” Caughtry added.

“We anticipate there will be a blended model where businesses will select on-premise assets and cloud services. Resellers will be able to offer choice and determine the right solution based on a company’s size, type of business and IT resource. This actually creates more opportunity for consultancy services for resellers.”

Delivered as a hosted service, Google Apps security offerings are designed to help keep e-mail free from spam, viruses, phishing, and other threats while also offering powerful mail archiving.

Google Apps security services, powered by Postini, are used by 14 million people in 40,000 organisations.

Peter Lorant, head of EMEA partners at Google Enterprise commented: “With the ever-growing prevalence of viruses and spam, this agreement creates new revenue opportunities for resellers to help their customers be more secure, compliant and productive.”

Read More: Deals done