Oculan Rolls Out New Appliance For SMBs

The company rolled out its Oculan 100, a network management and security appliance with features similar to those found on Oculan's Series 250 product, but aimed at SMBs and priced accordingly, said Darrek Porter, vice president of marketing at Oculan, Raleigh, N.C.

The Oculan 100 enables network administrators overseeing as many as 10 servers, 10 network devices and 100 PCs to administer management functions, intrusion detection, vulnerability scans and performance analysis through a single interface supported by detailed reports and policy-based notifications.

In addition, VARs looking to manage multiple SMB customer sites can do so using the Oculan 100 by installing units onsite and consolidating the interfaces, according to the company.

Oculan channel partners including Luis Alvarez, president and CEO of Alvarez Technology Group, Salinas, Calif., hailed the new device as a significant opportunity to expand presence in the SMB market.

"The [Oculan] 100 really opens up the 25- to 100-employee range for us," Alvarez said, adding that now he can tell customers, "For half the price, you can still get the same level of services."

Oculan has begun an aggressive channel campaign to promote the arrival of the system, engaging national VAR and service provider organizations such as the Managed Service Provider Alliance (MSPA) and the ASCII Group, Porter said.

"We are going back to resellers like people in the ASCII Group and the MSPA that we have talked with in the past and re-engage with them. One of the reasons they didn't engage [with the Oculan 250] is they thought the price point was a little higher than they wanted for SMB customers," Porter said.

The Oculan 100 starts at $4,995,half the price of the Oculan 250.

Assisting the channel with bundled service offerings centered around the Oculan product line will also be part of the company's new strategy, Porter said.