Cleaning up the channel

Setting the right price

Kaspersky partners believe plans to adjust prices according to the spending power of individual markets could boost business, although some claim the move glosses over more serious channel issues that the company faces.

The anti-virus software outfit intends to modify its pricing structure to reflect the disparate buying strengths of markets throughout the MEA region.

“Looking at the market I think pricing adjustment has to be done because we are getting competition from [Kaspersky] products in India that are being sold cross-territory,” said Deeraj Kumar Godla, regional manager at Jordan-based IT provider iAxcess. “I think it would be good for a pricing adjustment to happen so that we can compete and sell aggressively versus Symantec and Trend Micro as well.”

Mohammed Faizel, retail manager at Kaspersky distributor Comguard, also supported plans for local price realignment. “Even a little bit of a rise would help to make our margins better and help from the retailers’ perspective as well,” said Faizel.

Regional Kaspersky boss Tarek Kuzbari said the adjustment of prices in markets such as Afghanistan could make the difference between customers purchasing legitimate products and associated services than not at all.

“We are trying our best to achieve customer satisfaction in terms of pricing, but at the same time maintain the image of the product,” explained Kuzbari. “We are not the cheapest product in the market and we are not going to be, but we are going to adjust prices to meet customer demand.”

One Kaspersky partner from the region disagreed that price adjustments were a positive step, insisting that the vendor needed to get on top of other challenges first.

“We are working in a region where pricing has never been an issue, especially for anti-virus because you still have the free versions — good products like AVG that can be downloaded for free,” he said. “The point is that Kaspersky doesn’t have a proper business model — right now there is too much of a price war amongst the distributors and I don’t believe that adjusting prices is going to solve any issues.”