German IT security specialist gateprotect has appointed Comztek as its value-added distributor for the African region. 
The agreement, effective since January 2013, addresses the African growth regions and is another step for gateprotect’s expansion of its sales network and alignment with top distributors.
“This partnership offers great advantages for both companies and addresses the dynamic growth market of IT security. Comztek has an extensive network of experienced resellers, and the goal of this new partnership will see us rapidly support and promote the introduction of gateprotect solutions in to the African market,” says Paul Conradie, MD of Comztek.
The African continent and, in particular, the Cape region in South Africa, provides excellent opportunities to companies who provide solutions in the areas of information technology, telecommunications and especially IT security.
The agreement will bring the technological know-how, a working local sales team as well as a service network to the region, in a bid to take advantage of the potential the market provides.
“Companies and government institutions throughout Southern Africa are closely investigating the deployment of security technologies within their organisations and to that end there are a number of public and private projects that are currently being planned. At the same time, we are also seeing an increasing demand for consulting expertise in the security arena,” Conradie adds.
During the past years, gateprotect has expanded and strategically adjusted its partner structure, particularly in the growing and emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the African continent.
“The complexity of IT security systems continues to grow in order to ensure that businesses can adequately protect themselves from outside threats. The next generation firewalls from gateprotect with their unique eGUI technology, are to this end, a perfect fit for a developing African market,” says Dr Peter Smeets, CEO of gateprotect.
“The African market is ripe for the picking and we believe that with our focus on IT security and our partnership with Comztek and its extensive reseller network we are now in an ideal position to be able to grow our business in the region.”
At the end of 2012, gateprotect was able to look back at what was one of the most successful business years in the company’s history.
Milestones included a variety of new national and international partnerships, the development and successful introduction of the gateprotect security audit, the upgrade of the next generation UTM firewall to Version 9.2 with Application Control and, most recently, the new hardware model range of the GPZ series.
Since 2010, gateprotect has been listed in Gartner’s “Magic Quadrant” for UTM (Unified Threat Management) Firewalls and was awarded the Frost & Sullivan “Excellence Award” in 2011.