10Net ICT Solutions has secured the distribution rights to BullGuard software for sub-Saharan Africa. The product is a full Internet security suite that includes anti-virus, spam and spyware filters, firewall and online backup with 24/7 online interactive chat support.
10Net has appointed retail distribution partners and is also attracting partnerships with South African computer vendors to bundle the product with new PCs manufactured in South Africa.
It will cost under $50 for a year`s subscription as an introductory offer. Every licence applies to three machines.
"We will work closely with PC manufacturers and large value-added resellers to ensure the broadest possible penetration into the market," says Riaan Otto, GM of 10Net ICT Solutions.
"10Net brings a wealth of experience in the local security market to the table," says Ian Hale, director, global OEM partnerships at BullGuard. "I have a long-standing relationship with 10Net`s directors, from when I was head of Dr Solomon`s in South Africa. With 10Net on board, we expect to have our software bundled on over 200 000 machines a year in South Africa alone."
10Net will offer second-line support to the main resellers and PC manufacturers. BullGuard will offer 24/7/365 first-line support from its live chat help-desk in Romania. The 24x7 help-desk retains 70 agents.
"Bullguard has its commercial headquarters in the UK and the product was developed in Denmark. We support our users from our well established and highly interactive support operation running from Romania, a country characterised by cost-effective, quality technical IT skills," says Hale. "We also find good English language skills there, and the product supports 22 languages in total."
While South Africa`s 10 other official languages are not yet supported, Hale says that could change through demand by the different ethnic groups.
"We will support new languages if it becomes commercially viable; it usually takes us a month to develop a new-language version of the product," he says. However, due to the unique nature of African languages, we may require a slightly longer development period.
"One of the unique features of BullGuard is its online backup facility; we provide a gigabyte of online backup space included in the cost of the first licence. The user has the option to purchase increased backup space through our online upgrade service (currently up to 5GB per user). In addition to the secure online backup to the Bullguard server bank in Denmark, people can use the product to backup to local drives; CD, memory stick, a removable hard drive and a DVD copy option is coming soon and will be an auto upgrade.
In this age of organised cyber crime and PC theft, small business and power users now typically need a secure, reliable and easy to administer backup service to protect critical files and information, we therefore recognise the need for simplicity and ease of use when activating this critical support process."
BullGuard prides itself on rapid definition updates. "Our anti-virus, hostile code and spam blacklist database is maintained and updated around the clock in real-time. Our virus lab is consistently among the first on the security market to protect our users from new virus attacks and to neutralise their potential damage," says Hale. "There are over 400 new attacks from around the globe registered every day; that information is fed real-time into our labs which then react by developing an immediate fix and a new definition and delivering it to all our users through the constant online updating service. It`s fed seamlessly to all users as they go online and occurs in the background, so it doesn`t interrupt their work or interfere with application performance."
South African users will also benefit from BullGuard`s extensive mobile protection.
"Our mobile product for all Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems has been available for three years now. We have extensive OEM relationships with the global smart phone manufacturers who are preparing to pre-install our product as the threat grows," says Hale. "While consumers don`t realise the threat until it strikes, the mobile phone manufacturers agree that it is imminent."
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10Net is a value-added distributor focusing on solutions in the areas of Web and e-mail content filtering, performance and availability management, security management, configuration and vulnerability management, operational change control, active directory management, SQL management and encryption. Most of these solutions integrate through an open, service-oriented architecture that enables common reporting, analytics and dashboarding. Organisations can thus reduce system and security risks by analysing, securing and optimising their IT infrastructure. The combined product range from vendors such as Marshal, NetIQ, Idera, BullGuard, Titus Labs and Voltage enables 10Net to provide integrated systems and security management solutions.
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