McAfee Rolls Out Centralized Security Management

Seeking to streamline the way companies manage their increasingly complex security infrastructures, McAfee on Monday announced Total Protection, a solution that allows users to combine and manage all of their security elements through a single console and agent platform.

Available beginning on April 17 for enterprise users and on April 25 for SMB customers, the solution provides four separate offerings, depending on customer size and needs. Total Protection for the enterprise includes antivirus, antispyware, antispam, desktop firewall, host-intrusion prevention and a network-access control system. Total Protection for small businesses builds on the software-as-a-service concept with an "always on" security environment. The company also will announce more packaged security services offerings on April 24.

David Roberts, McAfee's senior vice president of North American channels, says the new solutions give the company's SecurityAlliance partners lucrative new opportunities to add sustained business services.

"This helps resellers across all segments by generating a services revenue stream," he says. "We've added policy-protection security for the SMB market and created a 'managed services in a box' concept that should be a high value-add sell for them. And we now can tell a very compelling story at the high end as well."

Roberts adds that the integrated offering will help partners deliver comprehensive protection against emerging threats as well as a service component that drives value and creates a trusted adviser relationship.

"It gives them a reason to call on their customers without having to sell them something every time," he says.

McAfee designed the solutions to give even more technological control to its partners because of their proximity to and relationships with their customers.

"We wanted to focus our marketing of this onto the VAR because they have the ability to consult more closely with the customers that McAfee doesn't have," Roberts says.

The cost of Total Protection will be roughly $30 per year for a 50-user installation, and less than $25 per user per year for 1,000 users, with decreasing unit costs as more users are added.