"India is a huge market for security, particularly for AV offerings, and we need to capitalize on the landscape with innovative offerings. In the past twelve months in India, consumer business has shown maximum growth compared to the enterprise and the SME business," informed Kartik Shahani, Regional Director --India & SAARC, McAfee. The 'McAfee 2009' suite was launched amidst the channel community at Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, which included distributors, sub-distributors, VARs, resellers and system integrators. "It is one of our first major launches of a consumer product, wherein we have decided to get more aggressive through the channel base," admitted Shahani. The launch highlighted the advantages of the suite in today's market space coupled with technology innovations and value proposition for existing and new prospective channels, he added.

'McAfee 2009' claims to be instant, silent and complete security offering for consumers. Shahani reasoned, "It provides the fastest updates and highest levels of detection with an update almost every 100 millisecond to protect against malware and other threats. Since most consumers, particularly home users, use PCs for gaming /movies, they do not prefer security software to be seen or heard. This is a 'silent' feature. Over 38 percent of all malware were created in 2007 alone and 80 percent of malware attacks are financially motivated," he said. McAfee with over two decades of existence in the security field has the largest collection of malware database through collective threat intelligence through Active Protection, SiteAdvisor and other methods. "Channels and consumers are beginning to understand the importance of a sophisticated security offering than a cheap AV offering in the market, he said.

McAfee has three distributors -- Ingram Micro (Consumer Business), Redington and Inflow Technologies -- for the Indian market. "To fortify our presence in non-metros, we recently tied up with the distributor Neoteric Informatique for consumer business. Their widespread offices and a large channel base across the upcountry, B & C class cities in particular. will help us enter non-metros much faster," he said. Other channels include national system integrators (elite partner/premier partner), mid-segment partners and resellers/retailers for SOHOs/SMBs. "The security suite is priced aggressively so that consumers will be encouraged to buy licensed copies. Reasonable pricing of software helps curb software piracy to an extent,"said Shahani. McAfee 2009 covers all the facets of PC, Internet, Data and Home including parental control and anti-theft file protection feature. The main advantages include PC optimization, IM & Email Link checking and Website safety.

McAfee has been acquiring a large number of companies worldwide, the most recent being Secure Computing. "The acquisitions help channel partners extend their product portfolio for a single client extending their business opportunities. We ensure the offerings of these companies are designed on our single console, which is scalable and unique to us." McAfee partners earn good margins upselling in the same customer accounts, he said. "The ratio of enterprise to consumer would continue at the present 60:40 rate, as major revenues are emerging from enterprises. With more focus on LFRs and retail channels, consumer segment will witness more adoption,"he added. With security market growing in spite of the increasing threats, there is an unending potential for our partners, he said. "Today's reseller is tomorrow's mid-segment partner," added Shahani.