Trend Micro has rolled out a channel programme for partners to "aggressively" sell a dedicated set of hosted security solutions in the Middle East. The 'Hosted Security for the Channel' programme is designed to help VARs make money from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), an increasingly important market for software providers as customers begin to shift away from on-premise offerings. The programme reflects Trend Micro's growing portfolio of hosted solutions, which now includes remote endpoint, e-mail and website security products for business users. "We are moving more into hosted services as that gives a better security solution to the customer in certain areas, particularly messaging security, because we have got to address the attacks at source, which is in the cloud ," explained Ian Cochrane, Middle East marketing manager at Trend Micro. "We are developing those solutions to be sold and managed by our channel partners — and that is very important because we are a 100% channel-focused vendor."