Reynolds To Propel Kaspersky's Enterprise Push

"Security is very relevant. Even in a down economy, security is very relevant," Reynolds said Tuesday. "The pie is always growing. The chance to lead a sales organization that is 100 percent channel, well, I was running to the opportunity. It worked out nicely."

Reynolds, who is replacing John Eddy, is coming on board Kaspersky as the Moscow-based company is rapidly expanding its Americas channel and planning to make an aggressive push into the enterprise space. Up until now, the antivirus company has experienced success primarily in consumer and SMB markets, but has had minimal presence in the enterprise.

But executives say they hope to see that change. Kaspersky Lab CEO Eugene Kaspersky said as early as December 2008 in Moscow that the company planned to target larger markets. As part of the move into the enterprise, Reynolds said that some of her biggest priorities include increasing Kaspersky Lab's B2B market share, recruiting channel partners, and enhancing its Green Team Partner Program.

Reynolds' first big public debut as a Kaspersky channel executive will likely be in February at the company's Americas partner conference, to be held in the Dominican Republic.

Reynolds' career path has been somewhat erratic over the past 16 months. Reynolds comes to Kaspersky after a six-month stint at Dell, in which she helped develop the company's large enterprise global channel strategy. Prior to that, Reynolds left a five-year position as vice president of channel and SMB sales for the Americas at security company Trend Micro in October 2008 to follow her former boss Lane Bess to head channel operations at application firewall startup company Palo Alto Networks.

Reynolds was terminated after less than two months on the job, however, in light of pressure from venture capitalist investors who felt that Palo Alto's channel wasn't growing fast enough to warrant a global channel leader with Reynolds' experience, expertise and salary requirements. Following her termination, Reynolds worked in a consulting role for Palo Alto Networks and other VC-backed startup companies to help cultivate their channel programs.

In response to claims that Reynolds is "channel hopping," she contends her decision to leave Dell was not based on any internal problems at the company -- or the fact that Dell, unlike Kaspersky, also supports a direct model in addition to its channel model. Instead, Reynolds asserted that her decision to join Kaspersky had to do with the fact that she missed the security space, and maintained that she planned to stick with the antivirus company for the long haul.

"[The move to Kaspersky] was really 100 percent about the opportunity," she said. "I learned quite a bit at Dell. The chance to lead a team and build it and grow faster than the market is very appealing. It's all about the opportunity."

However, Kaspersky is definitely going after nearest competitor -- and Reynolds' former employer -- Trend Micro. The Tokyo-based company holds the position as the third largest security company, but could possibly surrender the No. 3 spot to Kaspersky Lab, which has captured more than 6 percent of the market share, and is continuing to gain ground.

As part of that push, Reynolds said that one of her biggest personal goals is to bring Kaspersky up to at least $1 billion in revenue. Trend Micro was closing in on that number, at $985 million by the end of 2008 -- around the time Reynolds left -- according to company data. Reynolds also plans to beef up Kaspersky's branding and marketing efforts, while disclosing that there will be upcoming announcements in those areas at Kaspersky's February partner conference.

Meanwhile, some partners say that Reynolds' hire was a smart move for Kaspersky Lab, especially as the company continues to keep its eye on the enterprise.

"I think that Kaspersky is as well positioned as anybody to take over that No. 3 spot," said Monte Robertson, CEO of SoftwareSecuritySolutions.com, based in Lakewood, Colo. "They're doing all the right steps. They're a great, channel-friendly company. They're very easy to do business with. I think she'll probably bring that corporate level up a notch."

Robertson said he hoped that as part of Kaspersky's enterprise push Reynolds would help pave the way for channel partners to get their foot in the door in larger corporate markets.

"I think that everybody is interested in growing their business as well," Robertson said. "I'm hoping we can work toward that [enterprise] market together. That's a pretty tough nut to crack."

Other partners, however, were more critical of Kaspersky's business practices. One Seattle-based solution provider maintained that in recent years Kaspersky had continuously cut channel partners out of some deals as the company increasingly relied on its large distributors, such as Tech Data.

Robert Siemons, CEO of Seattle-based Rain Networks, contended that his company used to be a Gold partner, but said that "because of the transition, we lost that status."

"At this point, I have no idea with Kaspersky. We haven't received a phone call from Kaspersky in two years. When you do this, you lose touch with your channel," he said.

If anything, Siemons said that he hoped Reynolds would work to build a program that allows more Gold level VARs, in addition to Silver and Bronze, to have the option of working direct.

"That's what they're there for," he said. "Kaspersky really is one of the best solutions out there. We do a lot of Kaspersky business. We wish we could do more, but we don't have that option any more."