inTechnology adds Pretty Good Privacy

Brisbane-based distributor, inTechnology, has inked a deal with data protection vendor, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP).

inTechnology national sales and marketing director, Mark Winter, said the niche area of encryption technology was a hole in the distributor's portfolio.

"One of the reasons we are looking at this type of technology is the data privacy laws being introduced in 2008. To remain compliant, a lot of organisations have to adhere to government regulations," he said. "It's a big opportunity for the channel to provide a value-add for existing customer bases."

inTechnology would have access to the full suite of PGP products including email and data encryption technology.

Winter anticipated a turnover of about $2 million from PGP sales in the first 12 months. "Whether you are dealing with a small real estate office that has customers' purchasing histories on its machines right through to banks, where there has been a number of well-publicised breaches recently, this can be useful," Winter said.

PGP director for the Asia Pacific, Jamie Brown, said inTechnology knew a lot about data security, complementary vendors and had a good customer base in its target markets, which included financial, banking and public sector companies.

"There are [new] privacy laws coming into Australia and New Zealand to protect private information -- meaning that financial and banking communities have to put security in place or they will be in breach of the law. It's already been mandated in the US and UK," he said.

"We want local customers to feel like they have local support and a technical resource, and we saw that in inTechnology."

The US vendor has established a local office in Melbourne. Brown, who was brought in from San Francisco to manage the region, said he would be looking to recruit a couple of sales engineers.

inTechnology and PGP will be offering partners free certification training in Melbourne October 15-18.