London, 17 June 2008
Panda Security, the leading global provider of IT security solutions and Risc Group, the foremost global managed service provider in Europe, have set up a Europe-wide partnership. Under the contract, Risc Group will add Panda Security’s global corporate protection solutions to its managed service offer. The partnership will mean that Panda can expand its provision of outsourced security services (SaaS) with support from the European leader in the field and Risc Group can capitalise on Panda’s technological lead in the Internet security field to strengthen its managed service offer.
“Our customers’ growing concerns about the ever-present threats to their information systems from viruses, spam, intrusion attempts, etc. are causing them to turn increasingly to security specialists.” Said Dominic Hoskins, Country Manager, Panda Security UK. “Amongst SME’s, SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions are proving less expensive and more effective in protecting a company’s digital assets. Risc Group has selected Panda because of our security expertise in the SME market, where our SaaS solutions are already delivering the highest level of protection to customers.”
Risc Group will operate the following Panda Security solutions under its managed service offer:
- Managed Office Protection (MOP) – a solution that protects against viruses and all malicious intrusions, via a service that can be managed remotely thereby ensuring that security policy can be set as a function of the needs of each user.
- TrustLayerMail (TLM) – an outsourced solution that protects e-mails against any form of on-line threat and spam.
“When combined with Risc Group expertise in protecting and safeguarding managed data, this strategic European partnership looks extremely promising for both our companies,” said Dominic Hoskins. “It offers our future customers quality assurance by giving them the benefit of the best technology available in our respective fields.”
Intelligent Protection
Both Managed Office Protection and TrustLayerMail are based on a Collective Intelligence system that operates 24/7, enabling the provider to offer protection against new viruses faster and more effectively than competitors can. What is more, Panda has 11 million classified malware models, and a database of over 3.5 million antiviral signatures updated continuously every day.
Complementary Offers
This partnership confirms the suitability of the ‘Software as a Service’ model, which has been offered by Risc Group for many years and with its “Collective Intelligence” Panda Security has consolidated its technological lead. Apart from the managed security service offers from Risc Group, the partnership with Panda will allow data back-up to be made even more secure, allowing Risc Group to retrieve archived data while guaranteeing greater levels of proection against contamination by viruses or malicious codes (keyloggers, phishing, etc). The research and development teams at Risc Group and Panda Security are finalising the integration of these services in managed mode and they will be available next October.
Joint Promotion Initiatives
Offers arising out of this partnership will be available from October 2008 and Risc Group will undertake a number of joint marketing initiatives with Panda Security. The Digital Economy Club, through which the two companies initiated this partnership, is one of the early promotion initiatives, and there will be dinners held on a regular basis. Furthermore, a series of presentations and demonstrations will be given by Risc Group and Panda, starting in October 2008 to promote the services to their customers and prospective customers.”
