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Life after Infotronics - Kerio bolsters direct partner efforts

Security software vendor's local team to meet and greet resellers after its sole distributor went belly up last year

Internet security vendor, Kerio, is charging up partner efforts after the demise of its sole Australian distribution partner, Infotronics.

Infotronics went into liquidation last year, just days after its parent company, S Central, sold its assets to managed services player, Brennan IT. At the time, Kerio threatened legal action against Infotronics, alleging S Central illegally siphoned funds from the insolvent business.

Seven months later, Kerio has appointed a new channel manager, Abi Vickram, as well as announced its first partner forum for SMB resellers in Sydney in late May. It also recruited one sales technical support engineer for Australian partners.

“We tried to investigate what was missing after the Infotronics belly up and what partners were requesting was mostly technical support,” Kerio vice-president of global sales, Mirek Kren, said. He refused to comment on the status of legal efforts.

There are no current plans to take on a new distributor but Kren has not ruled it out for the future. Kerio has about 300 resellers in Australia.

The Kerio Partner Forum will be held at Novotel Rockford, Darling Harbour on May 25 and features industry figures running through current IT trends. Microsoft MVP, Wayne Small, and VMware senior virtualisation consultant, Andre Leibovici, will speak on cloud computing and virtualisation. Kerio’s decade-long partner and former Infotronics reseller, Secom Technology, will also have a slot at the forum.

Secom IT director, Jason Drew, prefers its direct relationship with the vendor.

“Infotronics had a multitude of products and a lack of technical skills to service the products,” Drew claimed. “Also, there were some delays with licensing for us with Infotronics.

“From our point of view, software sales and licensing are faster for us now.”

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: Brennan, Brennan IT, Infotronics, Infotronics Software, Microsoft, MVP, Rockford, S Central, VMware
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