Trend Micro to accelerate R&D investment

BANGALORE, INDIA: Trend Micro, a global leader in Internet content security, recently held its annual meet for India Channel Partners, with an aim to outline business strategy for 2009, update on product road map and share ideas on how Trend Micro can add value to their Partners’ business.

The channel partners got an opportunity to interact face-to-face with the global leadership of Trend Micro, including Steve Chang, Chairman and Founder; Eva Chen, CEO and co-Founder; Mahendra Negi, Chief Financial Officer & COO; Raimund Genes, CTO; and the executive GM of enterprise and SMB business units.

Speaking at the meet, Eva Chen, Global CEO & Co-Founder, Trend Micro, said, “Trend Micro invests about 65 per cent of its revenue annually in technology, infrastructure, data centres, hiring skilled workers and employee training. With cash in hand of US$1.2 billion, we will continue to invest despite the challenges ahead.” She reiterated her belief that economic recession accelerates innovation and acceptance of disruptive technologies like Trend Micro’s revolutionary Smart Protection Network.

Chen further added, “As US-based companies shift their business to Asia-Pacific owing to economic downturn, and also look at improving their security, we foresee an immense opportunity in coming years. Asia-Pacific will be our biggest growth potential.”

Commenting on the success of the event, Amit Nath, Country Manager – India & SAARC, Trend Micro said, “India continues to remain a growth market and focus for Trend Micro. The Trend Micro channel meet in Kuala Lumpur, organized exclusively for benefit of our Indian channel partners, is a clear testimony to our focus on India. About 60 people from 45 of our top partners in the Affinity program took part in this 3-day meet. Content security threats are expected to increase to over 20 million plus by 2010, as compared to 13 million this year. It is imperative in such times that the channel partners are continually educated and updated about emerging threats as well as newer solutions to combat these threats.”

For the first time, Trend Micro Chairman & Founder Steve Chang introduced to the channel partners the concept of World Cafe – a participatory, democratic, knowledge-sharing platform where all channel partners deliberated over 4 exhaustive sessions to pool-in ideas on “How Trend Micro can add value to their business”. Out of these, the best few ideas were then filtered, which would be used to devise Trend Micro’s channel partner programs.

Responding to a suggestion voted by as many as 22 of the participants, regarding need for Proof-of-Concept (POF) Labs to allow customers to visit and test the products, Mr. Amit Nath briefed the partners about three technology support labs (Tech Labs) being set up by Trend Micro in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, to help empower its Affinity channel partners in India. He further added that these labs are equipped to let partners demonstrate entire Trend Micro portfolio of products to prospective customers. For their internal training purposes, these Labs provide enterprise class infrastructure.

The entire event was themed around the Chinese year of the Ox. The evening Gala Dinner had some breath taking performances by the local artistes including the famed Lion Dance. Trend CFO and APAC VP of Sales gave away the awards to partners under different categories.

The award for the best marketing partner was shared by ACPL Systems and Raksha Technologies. Macaws Infotech was ranked as the best training partner. HCL Comnet was rated the best sales partner. Ingram won the award for the best coverage in SMB segment, and Wep was the winner in the best enterprise coverage category. DCH Solutions won the award for the best upcoming partner in the Affinity program in India.