Perhaps better late than never, Kaspersky Lab is slowly getting into the hosted and managed security services game. Over the next two years, the Russian vendor will provide its partners with the tools and resources to deliver its security technology as a remotely delivered or cloud-based service.

Kaspersky executives outline the company's services plans for an international press gathering it's hosting in Moscow. Next year, it will provide its partners around the world with a new version of its Administration Kit that will enable the delivery of endpoint antivirus and security as a manage service. Through 2011, Kaspersky will gradually expand its capacity to deliver cloud-based e-mail security and Web filtering services that are sold by its partners.

“We have a lot of the technology already; we just haven't brought them to market as a product,” said Keith Maskell, vice president of Kaspersky's corporate business division.

Kaspersky has high ambition to grow in the enterprise and upper-midmarket segmentation, and take market share away from rivals such as Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro. Providing services is an integral part of that strategy, the company's executives say.

But Kaspersky's services are more of a work in progress than imminent launch. The company has focused on continual improvement of its endpoint security technology that was founded on antivirus. It's already moving parts of that endpoint protection to hybrid cloud models, where virus signatures and security policies are hosted in Web-based databases for faster disseminations. However, it still needs to develop and deploy Web filtering, content inspection and data loss prevention technologies, and provide them as services offerings.

Comparatively speaking, Kaspersky is late to the services game. Symantec and Google are the leaders in hosted e-mail security. McAfee bolstered its e-mail security services through the acquisition of MX Logic. And Cisco is jumping into e-mail security with its acquisition of Scan Safe.

Palisade Systems is offering DLP as a managed service, and Websense and Blue Coat offer Web filtering and content inspection as a service. Barracuda Networks has positioned itself as a contender in content security services through its acquisition of PureWire.

And traditional security hardware vendors such as Cisco, Fortinet and SonicWall have been working with managed service providers to leverage their products as the platform for managed security services.

All of this makes Kaspersky look as though it's late to the party. Kaspersky disagrees with that assertion, pointing out that most of its competitors have gotten into services by acquiring disjointed technologies and companies where it's developing and assuring the quality of its products in house.

Will Kaspersky be a welcomed addition to the managed and cloud-based security services? Does it have the reputation and credibility to provide such services to and through partners? Would you—the solution provider—sign up for Kaspersky managed and hosted services?