MessageLabs is beefing up its channel-related staff with the appointment of an enterprise client and partner services manager and business development director.

Andrew Gordon and Ken Hogg wouldl each touch the channel in various ways and form the start of another partner push for the vendor, MessageLabs Asia-Pacific director of partners, Andy Lake, said.

"This year we'll be expanding the channel significantly again," he said. "We're going to be boosting a lot of channel resources and acquiring new partners."

Lake said the appointment of Hogg as enterprise business development director would provide a sounding board for the vendor's work in the enterprise arena with its channel partners.

"Ken is an old campaigner in the enterprise sales arena and will be useful for MessageLabs as we penetrate further into the enterprise sector," Lake said. "We do the majority of our enterprise business through the channel."

Hogg was the first sales manager at Brightmail prior to its acquisition by Symantec, and formed partnerships with IBM, Dimension Data, Sun Microsystems and EDS.

Gordon, meanwhile, has worked for IT messaging and security vendors for the past nine years and would provide a technical liaison for the partner base in Australia in his role as enterprise client and partner services manager, Lake said.

"Andrew will be able to provide both pre-sales technical consulting and also add to areas of thought leadership and problem solving with our partners," he said. "He'll be able to work with our architects and channel partners and provide education around that first line of support as well as act as a point of escalation for both larger customers and our partner community."

Lake said the push for channel-related staff would not end with the appointments of Hogg and Gordon.

"Andrew's team will be significantly growing throughout the rest of this year," he said. "We're in recruiting mode for technical operations support people and partner account directors."

Lake estimated MessageLabs would take on between 6-10 personnel during the next six months, the majority of whom would touch the channel.