Trend Micro Debuts MSP-Focused Version Of Vision One Platform

The cybersecurity vendor is seeking to help channel partners add managed services around its AI-driven threat detection platform while expanding the use of its Vision One platform among MSSPs, Channel Chief Louise McEvoy tells CRN.

Trend Micro is seeking to enable channel partners to add or expand managed services around its Vision One cybersecurity platform with the debut of a service-focused version of the offering and a new MSP partner category, according to Channel Chief Louise McEvoy (pictured).

The new Trend Vision One for Service Providers offering aims to present expanded opportunities for channel partners such as resellers to launch managed services practices around the unified, AI-driven platform for threat detection, response and prevention, Trend Micro said.

[Related: Trend Micro Joins The Trend Towards Consolidated Security Platforms]

Meanwhile, for partners that already offer managed services based on Vision One—including MSSPs—the new version of the offering will introduce critical features such as multi-tenancy, extended SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) capabilities and a wide array of integrations with third-party tools.

For partners that have traditionally focused on resale and are “transforming into a services approach, this allows them to extend their offerings,” McEvoy, vice president of U.S. channels at Trend Micro, told CRN.

And for MSSPs that “already know how to manage end customers, this allows us to extend [Vision One] to newly recruited MSSPs,” she said.

Meanwhile, Trend Micro is also unveiling the new MSP partner category in its channel program to formalize its work with MSPs around the use of Vision One.

The extension to Trend Micro’s partner program will provide MSPs with on-boarding, enablement and competitive pricing, as well as the choice between a fully managed version of the offering or leveraging APIs to offer co-managed services to customers that want to use their own existing technology with the platform, the company said.

Tariq Alvi, founder and CEO of XentIT, a longtime partner of Trend Micro, said the moves will enable the Landover, Md.-based solution provider to “significantly improve our efficiencies” and ultimately be able to provide managed services around the Trend Micro platform to a greater number of customers.

XentIT has already provided Security Operations Center (SOC) as a service to customers using Vision One, but its engineers had previously needed to log in to a different console to manage each customer, Alvi said. Now the team will have a single console to manage multiple customers, which “makes our job so much easier,” he said.

“With this offering from Trend, one engineer can manage eight to 10 clients,” Alvi said. “This will significantly enhance our processes and allow us to bring on a lot more clients, and support a lot more clients.”

Trend Micro’s debut of Vision One for Service Providers has also been bolstered by SOC technology from Anlyz, which Trend Micro acquired earlier this year. Capabilities from the acquisition are helping to enable SOAR and 24x7 monitoring of Trend Micro and third-party products for threats and other security issues.

All in all for partners, this expansion “just gives them bigger opportunities,” McEvoy said, given that the ability to manage security for customers “is where the market is going.”

With the shortage in cybersecurity talent and the intensifying threat landscape, “all of that is requiring us to be able to deliver on SOC, MSSP [and] managed services in some capacity,” she said.