SMX set to sign Australian distributor

Opens Melbourne datacentre after round of capital raising

Security company SMX has established a base of four resellers in Australia and is about to sign a head distributor there.

In addition, it has opened a datacentre in Melbourne after raising $1.67 million.

Managing director Jesse Ball says SMX has customers, such as real estate company Harcourts, that operate on both sides of the Tasman.

Ball says its sales model for Australia is different than exports to countries that are further afield and in different time zones. Its strategy in further flung nations is to sell licence agreements with a local licensee who rebrands the SMX service and provides local customer support.

“With Australia we’re focusing on selling through resellers but supporting the service ourselves, with mail cleaned at the Melbourne datacentre and customer support handled from our Auckland helpdesk. The time zones are sufficiently aligned for this to be a viable strategy.”

Ball says the four Australian "early adopter" resellers were signed up over the past six weeks.

The Melbourne datacentre was opened after customers with a presence in Australia requested that their Australia data was housed in-country, he says.

Opening the datacentre was the first phase of its launch across the Tasman, while signing resellers was the second.

The third is the appointment of a distributor, and this will be done in about two weeks, Ball says. He adds the distributor is well-established there.