Tumbleweed aims to recruit 30 partners during 2008 with the help of DNS Arrow

Tumbleweed is hunting for resellers to punt its managed file transfer (MFT) technology to large enterprises after appointing DNS Arrow as exclusive UK distributor.

DNS Arrow has been tasked with recruiting 30 resellers this year. It will also take charge of Tumbleweed’s handful of existing partners.

Although Tumbleweed is best known for its email security appliances, the duo will focus on drumming up interest for the vendor’s MFT technology.

Craig Whitney, EMEA managing director at Tumbleweed, said: “Email security is a saturated market. Saturation for MFT is 20 per cent, so it is a wonderful opportunity.

“It is the right time to take it to the market and get resellers excited about the products.”

Whitney said recent high-profile events make MFT a popular technology among banks and public sector clients, although he added that anyone who values data as it moves from A to B is a viable customer.

“We have a small number of high-visibility partners on board already. DNS Arrow will help us scale the business as it can help with training and technical support. We would love to have 30 partners up and running by end of the year,” he said.

Whitney also admitted Tumbleweed had learned from its past mistakes in the channel.

“Until a year ago we had a mixed channel model. Since then, the company has been undergoing a transformation in its go-to-market approach,” he said.

James Pattinson, security director at DNS Arrow, said he had received interest from 35 VARs on the launch date last month.

“MFT is in early adopter phase, so there are high margins in selling the product and providing professional services around it. We can either enable resellers or provide the services ourselves,” he said.

Whitney estimated that the global MFT market is currently worth $600m (£305m) and growing at 40 per cent annually.

“We occasionally see Sterling Commerce, but we have very few direct competitors. No one is talking about MFT,” Whitney said.