Kaspersky finally warms to the Australian climate

With its first Australian office and further local resources, the Russians are coming

The prospect of dealing with foreign, specifically European, security firms can send a shiver down the spine of many Australian resellers. With strong offerings available from language-compatible countries such as the UK and the US, not to mention homegrown developments, why should we leave our safety zone? Especially when it comes to IT security measures.

This is a question Russian anti-virus vendor Kaspersky will need to answer as it launches its first-ever Australian office later this year. Many resellers will be familiar with the firm and may already be sourcing Kaspersky products from its various Australian distributors. Kaspersky has in fact been selling to the Australian market for nearly a decade, but only now have plans for the local office been announced. A regional office is a vital component for any international vendor, especially one suffering from both language and time-zone disparity.

A decade is also the time its global partner conference has been running for. Hence CRN was surprised to be invited to Russia’s picturesque former capital of St. Petersburg for the conference’s 10th outing last month.

Spoilt by Australia’s temperate climate, CRN was even further surprised to be greeted by a pleasing Russian climate and an equally toasty welcome from our counterparts from the behind the iron curtain. Someone had reason to impress.

“We want a partner community in every territory,” said the vendor’s charismatic founder, Eugene Kaspersky, a man highly respected in his homeland as self-made and one of Russia’s finest entrepreneurs. “We want to have this presence to offer local marketing, a sales team to support the partner network and provide technical support. We are against direct deals.

“We plan to open the Australian office in Q4 calendar year. We have plans to be closer to our customers around the globe, so alongside the Australian office we are opening offices in Latin America and Middle East countries to be ready for the global contracts. Our strategy is still partner-based and our new offices are not replacements for our partners, they will help the partners.”

Kaspersky was also keen to predict what the anti-virus landscape would hold in years to come, with operating systems a clear focal point.

“Modern operating systems are flexible, but insecure. It is the customers who determine operating system design and they choose flexible over security. Secure operating systems are unlikely to emerge in the next decade.”

He stressed that in the future all operating systems will reach the limit of their functionality and will be hugely similar to each other. Next on Kaspersky’s prediction list was the rising concern around so-called ‘e-terrorism’, with attacks likely to rise. “There will be armies of cybercriminals and e-terrorists and no real solutions from governments,” he warned.

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