As cloud ramps up the competition for next level technology, antivirus becomes the next big thing to have in your cache. SME Channels asked Sanjit Chatterjee, CEO, Reve Antivirus, for his views regarding the same.
Please brief us about the inception of Reve Antivirus and its growth.
REVE Antivirus was launched in the year 2016 as an IT Security brand by REVE Systems India Pvt. Ltd. The company made its first beta launch of the product in October 2016 and commercially the products were available from Q1 of 2017. Initially, REVE Antivirus product suite comprised of Antivirus, Internet Security and Total Security.
REVE Antivirus entered the mobile security segment in mid of 2017 launching its first product Mobile Security for Android. Maturing in the SOHO segment, REVE entered the enterprise market with its launch of REVE Endpoint Security Solution in March 2018. The Year 2018 was a period of several product launches, and as an IT Security brand, REVE brought Antivirus for Mac and for Linux under its belt covering all operating systems.
[quote font=”tahoma” font_size=”13″ font_style=”italic” color=”#262626″ bgcolor=”#f9f9f9″]“We will bring a complete cloud version of our enterprise solution by Q4 of 2019. Currently, we have a hybrid model of on premise and cloud.”[/quote]
What is your market strategy?
We adopt a well-balanced market strategy, where our partners, distributors and core sales team play an important role. Our in-house sales team handles some segments of the market directly, whereas a large customer base is catered by our partners. We often conduct partner meets, where progress regarding the business is discussed along with the areas where improvements are required.
How do you stay ahead of the competition?
Staying ahead of the competition is tough but not impossible if you adopt the right approach. With dozens of players offering similar product, we bet on quality and customer satisfaction to gain an edge over our competitors. In today’s market, many companies work on price reduction module or bring low cost security product to gain market advantage. But, we continuously work on making our product better to provide best-in-class security to our customers.
What is your strategy for channel partners?
Channel partners are crucial for our business operations across India and across the globe. In India, we have our partners in both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Cities, who are responsible for distributing our entire range of IT Security Suite, comprising retail & enterprise products. We always support our channel partners with required sales collaterals, trainings and workshops. In order to keep them motivated, we bring new schemes and provide incentives from time-to-time.
What is the challenge in the Indian market? What is the present market size and its growth trajectory for this year?
The IT security market in India is maturing but there are still several challenges in terms of awareness. Most antivirus users are not aware regarding their exact requirements and hence end up choosing a wrong product. Also, people often gets confused by attractive advertisements from antivirus companies, which floats low cost sub-standard products. To address this issue, there should be strong norms from the Government as well, so that only approved products are available in the market.
Talking about market size, India is the second largest in internet usage, which makes the IT Security market quite big. We believe there is a tremendous scope in this market.
Are you a market leader? What are you doing to enhance your market share?
We cannot say we are a market leader at this point of time buy yes, we are growing steadily in the Indian market adding new territories under our distribution. By developing a robust channel ecosystem, we have been able to make our range of IT Security products available for customers not only in Tier 1 cities but also in Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities of India. In the year 2018, we have added multiple locations in our distribution list which includes Chhattisgarh, Western UP, West Bengal, Pune and Raipur. As far as new partners are concerned, we have done the same for New Delhi, Faridabad, Dehradun, and Kolkata.
What role does cloud play in determining the growth of anti-virus?
Cloud technology in antivirus software is implemented to use advanced machine learning algorithms to detect and quarantine threats. It is not exactly for the growth of antivirus but to provide better security to users and deal with Zero Day attacks. Cloud acceptance is growing in the region, so is the demand. Regarding REVE Antivirus, we will bring a complete cloud version of our enterprise solution by Q4 of 2019. Currently, we have a hybrid model of on premise and cloud.
What is your product roadmap for 2019?
The year 2019 is a very important year for us in terms of product development and market expansion. Taking about products, I would like to mention that we will be adding several new features in our entire line of security suite comprising of both retail & enterprise. Our Endpoint Security Solution, which is currently for Windows will be added with Mac & Linux operating systems. The Endpoint Protection antivirus will also be enhanced with advanced Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and Data Backup features.
