Trend Micro expands SaaS security strategy

Trend Micro Monday expanded its software-as-a service strategy to reach a wider range of business customers while taking steps to keep its reseller channel in the fold.

Trend Micro announced its WorryFree Hosted service for small offices, a cloud-based scanning service for Windows-based desktop machines (priced at about $33 per desktop for up to 25 users). It is offered as an alternative to Trend's traditional antimalware software package.

According to Stan Woodward, director of marketing for the small to medium business unit at Trend Micro, the WorryFree Hosted service requires a "light version" of Symantec's antimalware with the majority of the scanning and malware detection and eradication done in a Trend Micro data center via the Internet.

The cloud-based service can provide some advantages over buying Trend Micro's traditional consumer software because the service provides a Web-based administrative view, the vendor says. An administrator for a small group can see the status of machines and gauge security levels through dashboard indicators, including green for clear, yellow for something suspicious occurring in the network and red when there's a definite problem.

Since last October, Trend Micro has provided Trend Micro Secure Site, a cloud-based service that scans Web pages once each day (at a price of $630 per domain) to detect cross-site scripting and iFrame vulnerabilities. "It looks to see what's been hacked," Woodward says.

Secure Site was initially designed for smaller businesses, but Trend Micro Monday is announcing support for larger Web sites with multiple addresses associated with each Web site (for $650 per IP address). To keep resellers happy, Trend Micro will place code on each Web page to be scanned so that resellers can keep a connection to the customer.

Keeping resellers on board in the new cloud-computing environment, which Trend Micro sees as an expanding area of business, is important, Woodward says.

Trend already offers InterScan Messaging Host Security for large enterprises.

To buttress that market, Trend Micro has introduced what it calls WorryFree Remote Manager under its Think Again program for SaaS and channel partners. "This is so they maintain contact with the customer and maintain account control," Woodward says.

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