Cloud computing marketplace vendor SaaSMAX Corp. has revealed plans to introduce a new offering that resellers can use to create and operate white-label storefronts for comprehensive online security solutions.
A new and separate “sub-marketplace” that utilizes the same master solution catalog as SaaSMAX’s main site, the security marketplace (which is available here) equips channel pros to assemble, sell, and attach their own brand to security service bundles featuring customized combinations of SaaS offerings in 12 different product categories spanning threat detection, prevention, and remediation. The system lets users add professional services to those bundles as well, and utilizes the San Diego-based company’s recently added comprehensive “quote-to-cash” billing functionality.
“It’s just really a one-stop shop for everything cybersecurity and SaaS,” says Clint Gatewood, SaaSMAX’s vice president of reseller partner development.
SaaSMAX, which is showcasing its new offering at the CompTIA ChannelCon event currently underway in Hollywood, Fla., plans to make the new marketplace available to resellers this month. Partners who choose not to take advantage of the solution’s white label functionality will get access to it first; the rest of the SaaSMAX reseller community will be free to join them by the end of the month.
CompTIA is a charter partner for the new SaaSMAX marketplace, along with Reston, Va.-based national security, health, and infrastructure solution provider Leidos Inc. The first crop of security vendors to utilize the site include Moorpark, Calif.-based NINJIO LLC, which offers security awareness services, and Baltimore-based Phalanx Secure Solutions Inc., which markets a variety of advanced security solutions, including insider threat detection, incident response, and vulnerability scanning systems.
SaaSMAX will add more solutions over the weeks ahead. Seeking to give resellers a range of choices without overwhelming them, however, the company plans to limit the product count in each solution category to 3 or 4.
The security storefront offering that SaaSMAX introduced today is the first of many it plans to deliver for a variety of vertical and cross-industry markets, beginning in the fourth quarter of the year. The company cites retail and professional services sectors as examples of markets it’s likely to target.
“Our goal is to crawl, then walk, then run,” explains SaaSMAX CEO Dina Moskowitz, who adds that creating sub-marketplaces for different solution categories has been part of the company’s long-term vision since its founding.
“It’s basically the next generation of our business model coming to fruition,” she says. To date, Moskowitz continues, the company has concentrated on establishing an online venue in which resellers can find SaaS solutions and the makers of those solutions can attract channel partners.
“Now our goal is to facilitate the transaction and the efficiency of doing business for the reseller” by enabling them to build online storefronts and manage client invoicing through SaaSMAX’s infrastructure, she states.
Helping SaaS vendors better appreciate the important role that resellers can play in their growth remains a key focus area for the company as well. According to Moskowitz, most SaaS providers are unfamiliar with what resellers do and why they matter at present.
“There’s a culture difference oftentimes between innovative, emerging SaaS companies and the traditional reseller businesses,” she says. “SaaSMAX is a really strong go-between that understands both sides of the table.”
SaaSMAX is by no means the only company offering white-label online storefront functionality to its partners. Ingram Micro introduced a similar offering in April, and fellow distributor Tech Data joined them last month.
