Security giant McAfee sees incredible channel opportunities in 2009
and will leverage the recent acquisition of Secure Computing, rival
Symantec’s channel turmoil and its own evolving community of solution
providers to increase market share and solidify competitive advantage.
In a Web conference this week, McAfee’s executive vice president of
worldwide channels Roger King told attendees that Symantec’s recent
channel executive shakeup provided a great opportunity for McAfee
partners.
“Symantec is our main target, so any kind of distraction or
disadvantage they have we’ll highlight for our partners,” King says.
Symantec’s Lisa Loe, formerly senior director of strategic partner
sales, defected to McAfee as vice president of North American channels
in September. Julie Parrish, Symantec’s former head of global channels, also left Symantec for a similar position at NetApp.
In the wake of these channel shakeups, McAfee partners have helped
the security vendor post 26 percent year-over-year growth in the fourth
quarter, while competitors were either flat or reported negative
growth, King says.
Regardless of McAfee’s growth, King says Symantec is still a strong competitor and a very important brand in the space.
Optimizing McAfee’s numerous routes to market will be a key focus in
2009, says King. McAfee will tweak programs that are tailored for
solution providers targeting large enterprises, those whose customers
are mostly SMBs and also distribution channels.
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 “Symantec is our main target, so any kind
of distraction or disadvantage
they have we’ll highlight for our partners."
Roger King
Executive Vice President, Worldwide Channels
McAfee
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McAfee will also focus on improving problem in the partner program that
solution providers have identified in the past, including fast-tracking
the vendor’s opportunity registration program. King says one of the
priorities is to make the process faster and easier for McAfee
partners.
“We’re continuing to work towards a 30-second process and also
much faster turnaround on approvals when partners register an
opportunity,” he says.
From a product perspective, McAfee’s recent acquisition of Secure
Computing and the products that company brings to the market will be a
major focus in early 2009, says Brian Foster, senior vice president of
channel management at McAfee.
“Secure Computing has some of the best technology on the market and
I’m excited to bring that into McAfee’s portfolio,” says Foster. Secure
Computing’s Webwasher product will strengthen McAfee’s Web-content
filtering capabilities, while its e-mail security products will be
integrated into McAfee’s own product lineup, says Foster. But what’s
really got McAfee and partners excited is Secure’s high-end firewall
and unified threat management (UTM) appliance, Sidewinder.
“The Secure Computing firewall is one of the best-kept secrets in
the firewall market. We’re excited for the acquisition based on that
product alone, because we feel we’ll be able to gain a big advantage
and more market share,” says Gordon Shevlin, executive vice president
of McAfee partner FishNet Security.
Foster adds that the high-end firewall will also be a great product
offering for McAfee solution providers selling into government
customers.
Ironically, some of the Sidewinder firewall’s underlying technology has its roots in McAfee. In
2002, Secure Computing bought the Gauntlet firewall from Network
Associates, the predecessor to the modern McAfee corporation. Secure
Computing merged the Gauntlet code with its Sidewinder firewall to
create the Sidewinder G2, which evolved into the current product.
For now Secure Computing’s and McAfee’s channel programs remain
segregated. King and Foster say they are working carefully to integrate
the two programs. Foster says in the first quarter of 2009, McAfee will
institute strict training and certification requirements for partners
selling each line, and the second quarter will see more heavy lifting
as McAfee smoothes the transition for all partners.
“When we make acquisitions the three ‘A’s’ are most important:
alignment, autonomy and accountability. We’ll put the two programs
together when we are certain we are ready to,” Foster says.
