PGP Corp. launches PGP Managed Service Provider Network 30 October, 2008 By Vanessa Ho

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To be part of the PGP MSPN, partners need to have achieved Gold or Silver status within the PGP partner program. As well, participants need to have MSP environment experience, pre-sales technical certification and QoS standards. As well, participants need to provide quarterly business plan reviews and monthly sales forecasts to PGP. About 80 per cent of PGP's business goes through the channel.

The initial phase of MSPN will offer PGP's Whole Disk Encryption as a SaaS subscription offering.

"The whole concept of SaaS and MSP is something that is increasingly taking off both on the SMB side and within line of businesses in large enterprises," said Marc Briceno, director of business development with PGP. "[SaaS's] time has come and as a result customers have become comfortable with this delivery model and are now extending it further to other types of security software like whole disk encryption.

PGP Whole Disk Encryption provides comprehensive, automatic full disk encryption, enabling quick and cost-effective protection for data on PCs, laptops and removable media. The encrypted data is transparently safeguarded from unauthorized access, providing strong security for intellectual property, customer and partner data and corporate brand equity, specifically when mobile devices are lost or stolen.

In addition, partners get access to PGP Universal Server that allows administrators to recover lost passwords and also enables partners to host a multitude of individual end customers.

Through the PGP MSPN SaaS delivery model, mid-market and small customers now have the advantage of having access to the same commercial-grade, enterprise-class encryption security as large organizations without requiring the upfront infrastructure and hardware investments typically required for implementing encryption technology solutions. E-mail encryption will be included in the MSPN over the next couple of quarters

"If security is delivered as a service, the end customer doesn't have to engage in any infrastructure investment, it reduces the training requirements and load in IT. PGP is now enabling our partners to deliver encrypted whole disk in a managed services environment," said Briceno.

Initial participants include ANI Direct, Aurora Enterprises and the U.K.'s Gradian Systems. Partners in Central Europe and Latin America will be announced over the next couple of quarters.

Partner benefits of MSPN include new vertical and geographic market opportunities, faster sales and deployment cycles and reach into SMB/SME accounts that have outsourced IT cultures. Other benefit includes adding an additional application to existing MSP customers current purchase profile thus increasing their average return per user.

End customers that will benefit from MSPN are those that have less than 100 to 1000 employees. Verticals include healthcare, accounting and legal. Customer benefits include access to enterprise-strength encryption without datacenter and helpdesk investments; pay-as-you-go; no annual commitments and quick deployment.

The program is free for partners and participation in the PGP Managed Service Provider Network includes listing on PGPs website, referrals, technical and marketing assistance and MSP pricing model. As well, PGP will provide integration assistance and partner incentive funds.