The chief executive of internet security vendor Panda Security is keen to grab significant market share in the enterprise space and is looking to the channel to help fulfil its goals.
Jorge Dinares, joined the vendor on 1 June from business process management vendor BMC where he was vice president of worldwide growth and emerging markets.
At the same time as Dinares’ appointment, Panda announced a multimillion-dollar cash injection from private equity firms Investindustrial and Gala Capital to drive international expansion and invest in the development of new technologies.
As revealed by CRN, the vendor recently changed its name from Panda Software to Panda Security to reflect its increased corporate focus.
Speaking to CRN, Dinares said: “We really want to go to the next step and continue growing faster and stronger than the competition. We have a very important growth strategy and that is focused on improving our presence in the international market and on the enterprise side.”
He said the vendor has not traditionally been active in the enterprise space, but has been more focused on the SME and retail sectors.
“We have a very strong offering now, especially with all the technology we are going to be launching to the market, and we want to make sure that we win some large accounts.”
However, Dinares stressed that the channel was key to Panda’s success.
“We will continue to work with the channel in all areas,” he said, “both in the retail and SME sectors, and with the larger accounts. In the UK, we are building a specific channel to cover the enterprise market and are focusing on ensuring partners are kept up to speed in terms of training and sales.”
The anti-malware market has changed significantly Dinares said, and vendors need to change with it.
“It is no longer about bad kids going out there to make a name for themselves – it is about gaining financial advantage. Over the past year, we have detected more malware than the previous 16 years put together and this coming year we expect that figure to be even higher,” he said.
Dinares said the vendor is launching two product concepts. One is centred around the idea of ‘mega-detection’, based on Panda’s flagship TruPrevent technology, which he claimed would find more malware than any previous version. The second one is based around ‘collective intelligence’ – again centred on TruPrevent technology – where instead of every PC acting individually to fight threats, they work together joined by a single platform.
The technology will be launched to the UK consumer market later this month and the corporate versions will be available in September.
He stressed the name change was purely to reflect Panda’s evolving role in the security market.
“We have used the word security to show we are totally committed to the security market, are not going to do anything else, and because we are no longer just about software – our mission is to deliver security to customers, it doesn’t matter if this is hardware, software or services,” he said.
The firm also intends to strike up more third-party agreements with vendors to embed its technology in their offerings and reach a wider market.
“I don’t see why this is something we should approach alone. We need to be open and to engage with other companies to grow,” he said.
Dinares also said the vendor would not rule out acquisitions to add meat to its growth plans.
“We plan to be more aggressive in extending our offering and that is not necessarily going to be through our own developments,” he added. “However, we want to consolidate our position in other areas so we can make a big impact in a short period of time. We will certainly be keeping our eyes open [for potential targets] in the market.”
Bob Tarzey, service director at analyst firm Quocirca, said the vendor has a challenge ahead of it.
“The internet security/anti-virus market is very highly penetrated and it is usually a case of vendors that are strong in the enterprise market looking to penetrate the SME market, not the other way round,” he said.
“A lot of vendors get traction through embedding their technology in other vendors’, so this is a wise approach by Panda. To get ahead in this market firms need to have bleeding-edge technology and stay ahead of the changing market place.”
