Trend Micro to tap SME segment

Trend Micro, the antivirus and content security provider, has chalked out plans to tap the small and medium enterprises (SME) market. As part of its expansion plans in India, the US-major would open a new office in Bangalore.

Having launched a product suite, specially designed for the SMB segment, Trend Micro is targeting a three-digit annual growth rate this year.

Trend Micro plans expanding its base of channel partners and resellers. Trend Micro has split its business into distribution and enterprise business.

The company has Ingram Micro and Select Technologies as its distribution partners and there are over 600 channel partners across the country, out of which 13 are Gold partners (solely supplying Trend Micro products).

Having a presence in all the major cities and towns across India, the company plans to launch its SMB products across 33 locations in the country this quarter.

Niraj Kaushik, country manager, Trend Micro India said that though the company has a strong presence in the enterprise segment, it will target the SMB segment to drive its future growth.

"We feel that the SMB would be the most vulnerable market segment in 2004 as their awareness level is really low. They do not have a dedicated IT expertise and have a false sense of security about virus attacks. They think they are too small a target for virus attacks," said Kaushik.

For the enterprise business, Trend Micro has partners like Wipro, HCL Comnet, HCL Infosystems, Tata Infotech, Ramco, Sify and Apara.

Kaushik said the IT security industry is slated to grow at double the industry growth rates "IT budgets traditionally have been focused on PCs and peripherals. The scenario, however, is changing with the growth in networks and applications," said Kaushik.

Kaushik said that an SMB would require to make only a small financial investment in anti-virus security.

"In absolute terms, a proper anti-virus security can start for as low as Rs 2,500 per user for a 5 year period," he said.

The suite of products for the SMB segment include Trend Micro Client/Server Suite for Small and Medium Business 2.0, Trend Micro Client/Server/Messaging Suite for Small and Medium Business 2.0, and Trend Micro InterScan VirusWall for Small and Medium Business 5.0.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the global market for secure content management "" which includes anti-virus solutions, message security and web filtering "" is expected to hit $6.4 billion in 2007, representing a compound annual growth rate of 19 per cent.

The number of virus attacks between January and June 2003 exceeded to 70,000, which is about twice the rate for 2002. About 20 to 40 new and variant virus threats were reported to Trend Micro on a daily basis worldwide in 2003.

Worldwide leader in the Internet gateway space (with a 63 per cent market share, as per IDC) Trend Micro is strongly placed in the enterprise segment in India.

"About 65 per cent of our revenues in India come from this segment. We are closely working with leading enterprises in some of the fastest growing segments, such as telecom, oil and gas, banking and finance, software", Kaushik said.

"The revenues last year stood at $ 364 million and we expect a three digit growth this year too," he said.

The internet is set to grow steadily and by 2006 is expected to have around one billion users. Worldwide, companies lost roughly $20 billion to $30 billion in 2002 from the virus attacks, up from about $13 billion in 2001, according to industry estimates.

The economic and financial impact of virus attacks will continue to climb in 2004. According to IDC spam would emerge as the key transmission vehicle for viruses in 2004.