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Indispensable channel analysis

MicroScopemicroscope.co.uk

March 2012

This monTh’s Theme is securiTytips for selling security-as-a-service page 6

develop a winning security pitch page 9 channel opportunities around advanced threats page 15

research reveals security spending hotspots page 16 top sales opportunities for security resellers page 17

reasons the security market is important to the channel page 18◆ the month in it ◆ opinion ◆ letters ◆ five-minute interview ◆

Rogue reseller employees in £123k procurement fraudRogue employees of resellers Bytes Software and Nettitude have been collared for collusion in a £123,000 conspiracy to defraud Lincolnshire-based grocery co-operative Nisa Today.

The conspiracy was orchestrated by Nisa’s IT procurement manager, Trevor Guerin, who bagged sweeteners of laptops, netbooks, wine and chocolates, on top of £50,000 in cash.

Grimsby Crown Court heard that the scam worked through fake and inflated invoices created by Guerin, and the resellers’ employees, named as Aatish Dudani of Bytes and Barry Hesk of Nettitude, paid sums of money into two holding companies set up by Guerin.

Prosecuting, Gordon Stables told the court that Dudani paid Guerin £16,000 while Hesk handed over £34,000. Meanwhile, Nisa unwittingly paid out thousands of pounds in return for kit that, in some cases, never materi-alised. All the proceeds of the fraud have now been recovered in full.

Joe McNally, the first Compaq UK employee, loses cancer battleJoe McNally, the first employee at Compaq UK and its managing direc-tor for many years, has died after los-ing a battle against cancer.

McNally started Compaq’s UK op-eration with just $40,000 in 1984, taking it from nothing in this country to a household name that posed a challenge to the likes of Hewlett-Packard and IBM. He retired in 2001.

Northamber reports decline in half-year sales as MD retiresNorthamber has given an indication of how difficult trading has been in distribution, revealing that improve-ments it reported late last year have stalled as the economy weakens.

The distributor revealed that not only were its half-year sales down for the six months ended 31 December, to £53.8m from £67.7m a year earlier, but that its long-standing managing director, Henry Matthews, is retiring.

Jeremy Butt joins Westcon to take charge of EMEA businessFormer Avaya worldwide channel boss Jeremy Butt is heading to con-vergence distributor Westcon to take charge of its recently integrated EMEA unified comms, security and AME business.

His brief as EMEA vice-president at Westcon is to bring together the firm’s disparate regional business units into a single EMEA structure, while strengthening its reseller relationships and expanding the scope and reach of its UC and security practices.

Hewlett-Packard’s Whitman is positive on channel PSG outlookHewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman has spoken positively of its channel partners relative to its business and consumer client business, PSG.

Whitman reaffirmed HP’s commit-ment to the PSG business, hinting at new products to come this year.

“PSG is important to HP, [but] for all that’s right with it, we underin-vested in innovation for the last sev-eral years, and we’ve been late to market too often. We have to lead again,” she said.

Dell ‘not really a PC company’ as it pitches for enterprise businessDell no longer views itself as a PC company, now preferring to pitch itself as a services and products pro-vider that can cover a wide range of customer needs.

The clarification over the vendor’s position was made by founder Mi-chael Dell at the unveiling of its latest PowerEdge servers.

“It’s not really a PC company, it’s an end-to-end IT company,” he said.

SME and consumer business are serious targets for Lenovo UKWith its share of the worldwide PC market on the rise, Lenovo plans to become a major force in the consum-er and SME UK client sectors.

The vendor has taken on 100 new UK partners in the past five months and hopes to create a pipeline to grow that number by 20-25% this year, according to UK and Ireland channel director Darren Phelps.

Rackspace bemoans cloud computing talent shortageHosted services provider Rackspace is to embark on a recruitment drive and is in talks with universities to establish cloud computing as an ele-ment of the IT curriculum.

International managing director Taylor Rhodes bemoaned a lack of technical expertise in the pool of po-tential candidates: “They have inade-quate levels of knowledge of core oper-ating systems and often no experience of working with cloud technology. There is a cloud skills shortage.”

Hard disk prices set to drop slightly by the end of MarchHard disk drive (HDD) prices, which have been inflated by the impact of the Thailand floods, should begin to drop off by the end of the first quarter as shortages start to ease, according to industry watcher IHS.

“Pricing will start to decline at the end of the first quarter this year for some HDD products, with compo-nent shortages finally easing and production increases kicking in from plants that escaped flooding,” the analyst firm stated.

IBM ups rewards for partners selling emerging technologiesIBM has overhauled its rebate struc-ture to encourage resellers to sell a combination of technology and ser-vices in the growth areas of the mar-ket, including cloud and analytics.

The IBM solution accelerator incen-tive rewards partners selling com-bined software and systems with 5% incremental revenue for selling IBM systems, plus further potential rebates.

Credit for small companies dominates pre-Budget agendaThe issue of SME credit is already high on the political agenda, even before the 2012 Budget sets out the details of plans to help ease the flow of funds to smaller businesses.

Business secretary Vince Cable said not enough is being done to help smaller firms, and in a leaked letter suggested that government-owned Royal Bank of Scotland should come under more pressure to lend to British businesses.

Channel players named in G-Cloud supplier framework A host of industry players have learned that they have been selected to provide cloud services to the public sector under Westminster’s long-awaited G-Cloud framework.

Among the companies that have been successful are some big channel names, including Trustmarque, Insight and Redstone.

The £60m G-Cloud framework comprises infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service elements, as well as specialist cloud services. Westminster hopes to reduce its expenditure on business applications by up to 75% as departments migrate to on-demand services.

“G-Cloud is far more open and accessible than previous frameworks and will deliver far better value to public sector buyers,” said Trustmarque sales and marketing director Angelo Di Ventura.

the month in the channel

march 2012 | 2Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk

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Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk March 2012 | 3

The ACEs have become established as awards that are worth boasting about if you are lucky enough to receive one

Is it all a game to you? Well, it should be

NiCk BooTh opinion

In Paris I witnessed the signing of a mega-publishing partnership between Gameloft, Ubisoft and Japanese game developer Gree.

Oddly, it was depressing on so many different levels.

Kronenbourg in Paris is £10 a pint and only one journalist in five returned the favour. But worse tor-ture was to come. The presentation was in French, so those of us who failed French O-Level had to wear a headset based on the crown-of-thorns design sported by Jesus at the Crucifixion.

But the biggest blow, which brought out my normally suppressed inner jingoist, was hearing how the French and the Japanese own the European games industry.

Britain used to rule at this. Yes, we might be rubbish at everything else, but we are fairly creative sorts. How-ever, according to Richard Wilson, CEO of industry body TIGA (The In-dependent Gaming Association), we lost our lead to other nations because they subsidise their gaming industry.

Look at Canada, for example, where developers pay much less tax on revenues. It makes UK companies less competitive and means creatives from here are more likely to cross the pond for more money. There has even been something of a brain drain from Britain to the US and Canada.

For lack of any financial back-up, many of our leading games compa-nies got taken over by foreign competitors.

A few years ago, I remember some hack from a US magazine asking for British gaming industry contacts she could talk to, as she didn’t know this topic at all. When her piece finally came out, it loftily informed our in-dustry that they lacked ambition and business savvy. If that wasn’t bad enough, her words were treated, by the BBC and the rest of the main-stream, as if sacrosanct.

We can’t invest in our games in-dustry because of EC regulations which forbid that sort of thing. Natu-rally, the French have somehow got around this sanction but, well, they’re different aren’t they? Mustn’t grumble eh?

Doubtless there are legions of em-bedded Jacque-boots who will op-pose any such industry encourage-ment – if anyone were to dare try it in the UK.

Surely there’s another way around this. Couldn’t the IT industry help out? Manufacturers and distributors are always talking the talk about ‘thinking outside the box’ but they rarely walk the walk. So why not use games to exemplify your message?

Every single press release, without fail, released by a technology compa-ny is written in the same, morale sap-pingly dull prose, with the same awful phrases endlessly repeated. Value Added. Leading Edge. Para-digm Shift.

That’s no way to ‘engage’ your au-dience is it? It’s not exactly the (yuk) ‘compelling content’ that will help you tell your story.

Instead of paying someone to write a press release, which your market-ing team will then needlessly re-write 20 times, so the agency then has to charge you 30 times as much as it needs to cost to compensate for all the time you wasted, why not do something more creative?

Why not tell the story about your new technology, or channel pro-gramme, or research through a game?

Even Gree, with all its game developing talent that generates €1bn in annual revenue, didn’t have the creativity to tell its story in pictures and actions.

So there’s a gap in the market. There are plenty of creative story tell-ing games developers out there. All that’s needed is a bit of nerve. Are you with me?

Oh forget it. Never mind. Let’s just wait to see what your bosses in the US head office instruct you to say. ■

simoN quiCkE editor’s comment

Awards really matter. You only had to look at the recent film shindigs on both sides of the atlantic at the Baftas and the Oscars to get a flavour of the importance of public recog-

nition for a job well done.So it is with great pleasure that I can use the leader

of this ezine to announce that the MicroScope awards for channel Excellence (acEs) are returning to celebrate the best of the best in the market.

Now in their fifth year, the acEs have become established as awards that are worth boasting about if you are lucky enough to receive one.

The categories are slightly different this time around (see page 5 for full details), as we look to reward those who have sold the best solutions into the market. Ven-dors can enter, pitching their products as the strongest,

but it will be a much more convincing nomination if it comes with evidence that the channel plays a vital role in making the technology work out there in the field.

When it comes to recognising the value of the re-seller, there is the same determination to highlight different skills across the channel.

We will be opening the nominations process today, 12 March, and then a longlist will go before a judging panel before the shortlist emerges and the reader-ship can vote for those they believe are the most de-serving of an acE.

The winners will be announced in the June issue of the digital magazine.

I look forward to reading your entries over the next few weeks and sharing in the excitement over the next couple of months as we get closer to that point when the winners can be revealed. ■

If you would like details of forthcoming themes running in the MicroScope ezine, share your reaction to this one, or make any other contribution, e-mail me at squicke@techtarget.com.

Forget the Baftas, the ACEs are back

editor’s blog: Quicke off the markhttp://www.microscope.co.uk/blogs/quicke-view

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McNally demonstrated the value of varied experience

Billy Macinnes opinion

Very sad news about Joe Mc-Nally’s death after a three-year battle with cancer.

He was there in the wild wild west days of the PC indus-try, starting Compaq UK in 1984 with $40,000.

It’s easy to look back at the past with rose-tinted glasses – even easier when PCs cost about three times what they do now and the margins were much higher too. No wonder people could afford, like McNally did, to deliver PCs by black cab.

Things are much more “profession-al” now, of course, but probably a lot less fun too. That’s what happens when a market grows up and matures.

One of the things about McNally that he shared with most of his con-temporaries was a varied work expe-

Businesses in Wales could soon be able to end their URLs with .Wales or .Cymru after .uk

guardian Nominet unveiled plans to set up a top level domain (TLD) for the principality.

If successful the move would put Wales on par with well over 200 other states with their own TLDs, so the bid is being taken very seriously by both Nominet and the devolved Welsh assembly in Cardiff.

“This is a big opportunity for Wales to define its space on the inter-net and maximise the distinct identi-ty of the country in both languages, so we will apply for both .Cymru and .Wales domains,” said Nominet’s Glenn Hayward.

“It will provide consumers and businesses with an opportunity to express their identity and pride through a dedicated online space,” he added.

After much debate, the next stage of the process will see Nominet take its application to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is responsible for evaluating all TLD claims. ■

alex scroxton network noise

Welsh firms could get .Cymru URLs

rience background. Before he came to the computer industry, he had stints as a roadsweeper, a supply teacher, working in a steel stockpiling busi-ness and at the UK’s leading meat and bacon supplier, FMC Harris.

This wasn’t that out of the ordi-nary at the time, because the rapid expansion in the computing indus-try, fuelled by the PC, meant there just weren’t enough people with IT qualifications to fill the jobs. Even if there had been, the qualifications would probably not have prepared them for the PC world.

As a result, there was a wider range of individuals operating in the mar-ket with far more varied backgrounds than we have today. In this sense, they reflected an industry which, at the time, was more diverse in terms

of products and companies selling those products.

Consolidation and homogenisa-tion have made most PCs virtually indistinguishable from each other. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say the same about the people in it, there is no doubt that if you popu-late an industry with people that have very similar qualifications and life experiences, you’re not going to get a lot of variety in it.

His own experiences probably served to fire McNally’s long- standing enthusiasm for the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme which helps to develop young people. This involvement led to his being awarded the Commander of the Vic-torian Order (CVO) in the New Year Honours list last year.

McNally left Compaq after 17 years in 2001 – the same year it was ac-quired by HP in a classic piece of con-solidation. I wonder, if he were start-ing out today, might he be doing something in cloud computing? Pos-sibly. But I think it is a source of some sadness that for many of the new breed of entrepreneurs, their work ex-perience is likely to be limited to sit-ting in front of a screen. One thing McNally’s career demonstrated all too clearly is that there really is “more to life” than most people think. ■

Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk MARCH 2012 | 4

Billy Macinnes opinion

F inally, a piece of research I find all too believable. Ac-cording to a study by Vir-ginia Tech’s Carilion School

of Medicine and Research Institute, business meetings can diminish in-telligence. Well, there’s a surprise.

In my current incarnation, I don’t have to go to any meetings, but back in the day I remember the nightmare of endless meetings littering my daily schedule. It always seemed to me that in any hour-long meeting, the most important time was the first five minutes and the last five minutes. Pretty much everything in between was waffle.

It was also pretty clear that howev-er dynamic people might feel, full to the brim with fantastic ideas, five or ten minutes in any meeting would be enough to knock pretty much all of that out of them as the group rapidly descended to the level of meeting speak and meeting thought.

According to the research from Vir-ginia Tech, an assessment of people’s intelligence before and during group activity revealed “dramatic drops” in the ability of some of them to solve problems compared to when they were working on their own, suggest-ing social feedback had a “significant effect” on their performance.

Business meetings can reduce intelligence

network noise bloghttp://www.microscope.co.uk/blogs/network_noise

“You may joke about how commit-tee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Labora-tory and the Computational Psychia-try Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.

The study also suggested people were inclined to perform less well in groups if they thought there were others in the group that were smarter than them.

“So much of our society is organ-ised around small-group interactions. Understanding how our brains

respond to dynamic social interac-tions is an important area of future research,” stated lead study author Kenneth Kishida.

In other words, meetings may well be counter-productive for a lot of em-ployees. Mind you, I wonder whether some bosses have an intuitive under-standing of this process and use it to try and dumb their underlings down to bring them down to their level. If I were in an office now, someone would probably suggest having a meeting about this. As it is, I could have a meeting with myself about it, but I’d better not – I don’t want to dumb myself down. ■

The MicroScope Awards for Channel Excellence (ACEs) celebrate the best of the channel recognising those that have delivered the best service, products and support. The awards, now in their 5th year, have been enhanced with a broader range of categories encouraging those with products and projects they are proud of to step forward and nominate themselves or their suppliers.

This year’s categories include:

2012 MICROSCOPE ACES RESELLER CATEGORIES • SME reseller of the year • Vertical market reseller of the year • Managed service provider of the year • Innovative reseller of the year

2012 MICROSCOPE ACES TECHNOLOGY CATEGORIES • Security • Storage • Networking • Software • Cloud computing • Infrastructure

2012 MICROSCOPE ACES DISTRIBUTOR CATEGORIES • Security distributor of the year • Storage distributor of the year • Software distributor of the year • Networking distributor of the year • Hardware distributor of the year

Online awards set to recognise and reward those resellers, distributors, and vendors that have delivered truly exceptional customer service and channel support throughout the year.

Highlight your achievements—submit your nomination by 30th March!http://www.microscopeacesawards.co.uk/

Submissions open: 12th March

Submissions close: 30th March

There’s nothing intrinsically new about security-as-a-service. As Ian Kilpatrick, chairman at Wick Hill,

points out, resellers have been deliv-ering managed security and services for years, and we might now term these cloud solutions.

By common consent, one of the most successful areas for security-as-a-service is hosted e-mail security. It’s not hard to see why something that, in the words of Peter Craig, EMEA senior product marketing manager at Trend Micro, “makes a lot of sense as mail can be filtered ‘in the cloud’ and delivered spam- and malware-free to the organisation’s mail server” would gain strong acceptance.

“Securing e-mail at rest, in use and in motion is a key part of any IT strategy, and doing that in the cloud has significant advantages for con-fidentiality, integrity, availability and control. Delivering all four to an equally high standard is a complex task that requires a mix of tools and technologies, which makes it well suited to a cloud service,” she says.

Lynchechaun has a vested interest in making the point because of the nature of Mimecast’s business, but a survey by the company found that a lot of customers were interested in it too, with 77% planning to upgrade to a new e-mail system and 86% saying they were willing to pay a premium for third party services to ensure a safe and secure migration.

Tips for selling security-as-a-serviceBilly MacInnes looks at the growing market for security-as-a-service and the reseller opportunities it presents

She says resellers can exploit this need by advancing the merits of moving on-premise e-mail security, which she describes as a complex pro-cess requiring time and resources that would be better deployed elsewhere, into the cloud.

The interesting thing to note is that many customers may already be using some form of security-as-a-ser-vice without knowing it.

“When asked if they use software-as-a-service or security-as-a-service, most IT professionals will say ‘no’,” says Ronan Kavanagh, CEO at SpamTitan, says. “However, when you dig a little deeper, many are in fact already deploying security-as-a-service in the form of e-mail anti-spam and antivirus security.”

security services

March 2012 | 6Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk

This type of service, he adds, is particularly useful to small business-es which don’t want to maintain an e-mail gateway, with its associated costs and administrative burden.

Stephen Ennis, services business development director at Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA, agrees that e-mail security is a great example of the security-as-a-service model and it encompasses a range of solutions, such as antivirus and anti-spam, encryption, archiving and compliance.

E-mail a good starting pointNessa Lynchechaun, UK channel di-rector at Mimecast, describes e-mail security as a logical starting point for adopting security-as-a-service. »

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A range of choicesThere are at least 10 different types of security-as-a-service offered by IT vendors today, according to Xavier Juredieu, vice-president for business development at AVG. These range from endpoint security to network security to e-mail and web security, as well as data loss prevention, back-up and disaster recovery, intrusion detection and identity management.

But he warns their value “can vary widely according to their licens-ing model, pricing policy and system architecture”.

The reason there are so many offer-ings may well be because security is one of the ‘as-a-service’ markets to which there are the fewest barriers to entry, says ZyXEL product manager James Harris. But he cautions it still requires a certain amount of commit-ment, both in terms of equipment and personnel, to set up a service. “You’d need to be pretty sure you are going to get the return on investment – and you’ll need good levels of ex-pertise, excellent monitoring tools and the business processes to go with them,” he says.

Security-as-a-service appeals to customers for a number of reasons, says Mark Hyland, UK country man-ager at Fortinet. For instance, they might prefer the option of paying for security services on a monthly basis as an opex rather than capex cost. It also reduces the worry of having to manage the daily updates that might be required with hardware because they can be done automatically via the cloud.

Kilpatrick agrees that the shift from capex to opex, partly driven by the recession, along with a reduction in staffing, is helping to advance the security-as-a-service cause.

But he warns that while it may be the preferred option for some cus-tomers, it will not be for others. “There are those which still want to manage their own security and they have many business, technical and commercial reasons why they would continue to do so,” he says.

Florian Malecki, EMEA senior product marketing manager at Sonic-WALL, is another of those not getting swept away. He says security-as-a-service will be attractive to SMEs that might not have the human resources

As many of the potential threats come from the internet, it makes perfect sense to use the internet, and thus the cloud, as the source for protection

n Offers organisations complete endpoint, e-mail, web and network protection through the cloud, saving the IT department time, effort and costs, and increasing the level of knowledge and expertise of those managing the services.n Automated auditing, remediation and reporting. Cloud vendors can conduct automatic/automated scans and other checks against infrastructure and systems to validate their security status.n Customers benefit from the visibility and security credibility established by the vendor.n Helping providers identify and mitigate potential technology vulnerabilities.

Source: Alex Hilton, managing director, Rise Partners

Key drivers of adoptionor technical knowledge to run their own IT security: “Security-as-a-ser-vice or managed services is a great option for them: plug, play and pay.”

But he points out that it is a differ-ent story for larger organisations. Some may be attracted by the option of shifting from capex to opex, but large organisations tend to not use security-as-a-service and prefer host-ing and managing their own IT secu-rity infrastructure, he says. The one exception is hosted e-mail security.

Mobile suitabilityAnother factor that will help to drive adoption, according to Mark Full-brook, UK and Ireland director at Cyber-Ark, is the fact that many users are so much more mobile. “While it is hard to just throw up defences, it is far easier to secure a user via a cloud connection. The sheer scale of users or connections and locations for data mean a cloud-based system is often the only option for providing com-plete security coverage,” he says.

Kilpatrick agrees. “Cloud-based mobile device management and se-curity, principally smartphones and tablets, is one good opportunity be-cause it’s a growing area that users recognise as a threat and where they typically haven’t got any defence. It’s also low cost and can be implement-ed without having to change existing infrastructures,” he says.

Kilpatrick adds that hosted antivi-rus is another good entry point, as is a managed firewall or unified threat management environment with quar-terly or annual billing.

Ennis at Avnet says the cloud is a natural place for security. “As many of the potential threats come from the internet, it makes perfect sense to use the internet, and thus the cloud, as the source for protection. The threat can be removed before it gets to the organisation rather than having to deal with it inside the organisation,” he argues.

Selling specialist skillsAsh Patel, UK and Ireland country manager at Stonesoft, believes it is “imperative” that SMEs move to a security-as-a-service model for a lot of the same reasons outlined by Malecki. “The skills needed in IT security are increasingly becoming

more complicated, and security can no longer be just a side job delivered by someone in IT. Security is becom-ing more dynamic, and because of this we need to be more fluid in the delivery of it,” he says.

Patel points out that it makes more sense for SMEs to use special-ist security resellers to deliver a managed security service with a strong service level agreement (SLA), which would be a “huge” opportunity for resellers.

But he says they should take a close look at vendor managed security service partner (MSSP) programmes. “Many vendors offer specialist MSSP programmes where they deliver their tool set to resellers on a loan basis and the reseller only pays a licence fee, which means there is little invest-ment and a comprehensive suite of technologies for the reseller.”

Harris at ZyXEL says most resellers with a solid security networking ac-creditation might want to consider offering active, hands-on manage-ment of security devices and regular check-ups and updates as an all-in-one service “more or less straight away, and with little upfront invest-ment as this kind of service might act as a stepping stone towards offering a

remote monitoring security-as-a-ser-vice proposition later on”.Advisory roleWhile many vendors already offer remote services that resellers can resell, he says they are more suit-able for the lower end of the SME market and consumers: “In the wider context, you just can’t make one size fit all the different security needs of businesses. In the security market, as much as any other, you will still need resellers to advise, install, configure, manage and maintain, and to provide security and other ‘as-a-service’ op-tions for customers. As a channel, we have to give customers a choice and cater for every customer’s needs.”

Steve Morgan, channel and com-mercial sales director at McAfee, agrees that the channel needs to re-spond to the growth in cloud com-puting and provide a consultative ex-perience to customers. “Resellers, partners and VARs are perfectly posi-tioned to use their knowledge of the cloud and IT space to act as a special advisor to companies on the most ap-propriate cloud and security solu-tions to meet their needs,” he says.

The reseller’s role as advisor is also taken up by Tony Rowan, techni-cal director for networking and secu-

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Ian Kilpatrick, Wick Hill: “Cloud-based mobile device management and security is one good opportunity”

Dave Stevinson, VIP: “Businesses will become more reliant on cloud providers to assume responsibility for security”

security services

March 2012 | 8Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk

rity at Avnet. He suggests resellers should concentrate on serving their customers by being a trusted advisor that works with them to understand their business and its risk to identify the right combination of security ser-vices to manage and control those risks within budget.

“By working with customers to find the right combination of servic-es, resellers can reap long-term re-wards in the form of annuity reve-nues and can concentrate on serving the individual needs of those custom-ers,” he says.

There is a sound business reason for doing this. If a partner is merely fulfilling product requests from an informed customer, the opportunity is limited. “That kind of customer is easily capable of finding the service they need directly over the web,” says Rowan.

Find your nicheJuredieu at AVG says that in the past, companies may have had little option but to call upon the services of local IT experts to fix technology when things went wrong. But today SMEs can access “a whole range of software-driven web-based alterna-tives that are easy to deploy and offer attractive pay-as-you-use pricing”.

While a growing number of resell-ers have made the switch to managed service providers, the vast majority are still wondering if they are ready for it or even if they can afford it, he claims. Resellers need to make a choice on where they want to play, because one size does not fit all. But those that don’t adapt are in danger of losing rel-evance if they don’t change.

Kathryn Miller, professional ser-vices manager at Alvea Services, says initial opportunities for resellers may lie in educating customers on the benefits of security-as-a-service and creating flexible, bespoke solutions tailored to their individual needs. They can then create and market

their own managed security services or partner with an established MSP. Linking with a distributor that al-ready provides managed security ser-vices can give resellers access to training, sales support, marketing materials and legal contracts – with-out having to make the investment themselves.

She adds that because the security-as-a-service market is still young, it’s a great opportunity for resellers to es-tablish themselves early on as leaders in this growing market.

Mark Herbert, business develop-ment director at intY, says resellers need to pay attention to security-as-a-service because customers want scal-ability and flexibility from a security solution, and cloud-based solutions give it to them. “They aren’t afraid of cloud any more,” he claims.

Benefits of security-as-a-servicen Reduces or eliminates dedicated hardware purchase/support/mainte-nance costs – security-as-a-service can benefit SMEs that require a high level of security but don’t have their own IT resource.n Reduced bandwidth costs – by managing incoming traffic such as e-mail in the cloud, security-as-a-service can reduce or remove the requirement to route remote office or mobile user traffic to a central location for filtering.n Ease of scalability – if a business expands or shrinks, services can be easily scaled up or down.n Automatic configuration/data back-up – configurations and data are stored in the cloud, ensuring consistent availability.n Datacentre availability and security coverage – large datacentres in the cloud can meet security and availability standards most SMEs couldn’t match.

Source: Alex Hilton, managing director, Rise Partners

»

They might also be able to provide third party assessments of cloud ser-vice provider security policies, pro-cedures and capabilities as a service, but as the cloud evolves and vendors prove they can be trusted with cus-tomer data, it will become increasing-ly difficult for traditional partners to sell security-as-a-service.

“Businesses will become more reli-ant on their cloud providers to as-sume responsibility for security, and many vendors are able to provide high levels of resilience with their own internal systems,” he says.

Kilpatrick at Wick Hill is not con-vinced things will move as quickly as some believe because he’s not sure the vendors are completely commit-ted to the cloud services model yet. “There’s a dichotomy,” he says. “Ven-dors want to be in on the cloud, but at the same time many of them make lots of money by selling their prod-ucts and services through the tradi-tional model. That remains the main revenue source for most vendors.” ■

Herbert adds that cloud service providers dedicated to the channel allow resellers to sell cloud security solutions to large organisations that would previously have been out of their reach.

He also warns that the market is switching from box-shifting to cloud services: “This is what customers want and those which don’t recognise this will struggle. There are challeng-es, of course, but having the ability to recognise and execute the transforma-tion of your offering and couple that with a flexible and agile pricing model that will increase your revenues, customer creation and retention.”

Changing channel dynamicsHamish Macarthur, CEO of research company Macarthur Stroud, is more questioning of the nature of the vendor/reseller relationship in the post-cloud era. For example, vendors have a habit of changing partner programmes. What happens if a vendor increases its minimum requirement and the relationship is terminated? With the contract continuing in the cloud, who gets compensated? “It’s not clear how things work out,” he says.

Dave Stevinson, sales director at VIP Computers, also questions the long-term relationship between ven-dors and resellers in a cloud services model. He believes resellers can help alleviate any concerns customers may have about trusting vendors with their data in the cloud, perhaps by injecting their own security policies into cloud services.

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Initial reseller opportunities may lie in educating customers on the benefits of security-as-a-service

Resellers can help alleviate any concerns customers may have about

trusting vendors with their data in the cloud

I t will come perhaps as little surprise that, when you ask se-curity vendors how their reseller partners should be pitching to

customers, the initial response is that it involves talking about consumeri-sation and the cloud.

Security concerns about the cloud have never really disappeared and still need to be dealt with by resellers and consumerisation is an issue that employers of all shapes and sizes are having to deal with.

Talk about those two areas and doors should open if the pitch is in-formed and backed up with accredi-tations and the right solution.

“Customers aren’t going to come to you and say ‘I have a problem with

feeling is that whether data is going into the cloud or being accessed via staff iPads, it presents a less secure environment at the moment.

That view is echoed elsewhere and, in the face of the unstoppable tide of consumerisation, the empha-sis is on achieving the right balance to ensure employees have a degree of flexibility without compromising the network.

“Network security and IT profes-sionals recognise the importance of striking the right balance between se-curity and accessibility, but it’s down to companies like ourselves and our channel partners to support them as they work through the many chal-lenges and advise them on the opti-

Pitch cuts in cost and complexityResellers must be sensitive to budget-strapped businesses facing sophisticated threats, writes Amro Gebreel

mum approach for their business,” says Tom Murphy, head of marketing for Bradford Networks.

“Even at the most basic level, secu-rity resellers need to be able to under-stand these new threats and challeng-es and should be looking for any opportunity to offer advice, knowl-edge and support to proactively man-age the challenges and support the IT department’s ever-increasing work-load,” he adds.

Consumerisation complexityOne of the phrases repeated time and again in this discussion about securing consumerisation is the need to make it easy to manage. No one is denying that bring your own device

security products

march 2012 | 9Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk

consumerisation’, more likely it will be ‘I’ve got a problem with iPads, or Dropbox’. This is an opportunity for you to broaden the conversation and help your customer deal with all the consumer technologies his users are bringing into the workplace,” says Peter Craig, senior product marketing manager, EMEA at Trend Micro.

“Consumerisation and cloud solu-tions enable agile security resellers to get in front of a new set of security buyers, the datacentre team, and grow their business by solving these prevalent challenges,” he adds.

The cloud debate is also twinned with customers’ desktop virtualisa-tion ambitions but when it is consid-ered alongside consumerisation, the »

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security products

march 2012 | 10Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk

(BYOD) will grow but, in all probabil-ity, so will the complexity of dealing with more devices.

“Feedback from all our strategic partners show that, more than any-thing else, customers want a security solution that is easy to manage,” says John Bartholomew, UK channel man-ager at Sophos.

Stepping away from cloud and consumerisation, there are still other things for resellers to talk to custom-ers about, with security moving so swiftly that there is a real danger those that have rested on their laurels will be exposed to threats.

Recent research from Teneo reveals a significant number of customers using first-generation firewalls which no longer cut the mustard, leaving them open to threats.

“A lot of customers will have ne-glected digital security over the past 18 months as they’ve been too busy just keeping their heads above the water. In that time though, the threats have moved on and become more so-phisticated,” says James Harris, prod-uct manager UK & Ireland at ZyXEL Communications.

“Basic firewalls, AV and IPS pro-tection at the gateway is just not good enough anymore – you need unified

“So many firms have built up piecemeal security because they’ve bought products to deal with specific issues”

Paul Shlackman, PR manager, SMB and Channel, at AVG, told MicroScope that as SMBs increasingly favour using their personal mobile devices for work, they are opening their businesses to new security risks.

“Independent research confirms that SMBs have so far done little to protect themselves from these risks, in the process handing solutions providers a tremendous opportunity to help them take adequate precautions against an unfamiliar, yet as the figures show, all too real threat.

“A study by leading research analysts GfK published in Q4 2011 reveals 19% of SMBs are using Android smartphones and an equal proportion use BlackBerrys. Today’s employees spend an average of one day a week working away from the office.

“The study also shows that very few SMBs are currently using antivirus or internet security for smartphones (16%) or solutions for mobile workers (2%). And there is plenty of evidence that this is having costly consequences. As many as one in six SMBs reported having experienced a security breach in the past year. The average cost of fixing these breaches was estimated at £3,790. This is explained by the combined impact of both short-term, logistical issues resulting from an IT security breach, such as time and cost to replace damage; as well as longer-term impacts, such as loss of sales and revenue opportunities.”

The conclusion for resellers is that this area of the market is already a challenge for customers and is set to become an even bigger one. IDC is forecasting that global spending on mobile security will climb from $407m in 2010 to $1.9bn by 2015.

The BYOD problem for the SME

protection on every ingress point across the network.”

“Last year, we saw more sophisti-cated threats like the Duqu and Zeus Trojans and the various DroidDream [the collective term for the scores of malicious Android apps] cause havoc. The BYOD explosion has made matters worse,” Harris adds.

“You really do need real-time web defences now – it is the only way to protect networks from dynamic web links designed to by-pass reputation filters and commonly-blocked types of web traffic.”

He advises resellers to warn against complacency because the risks are simply too great.

There are also other opportunities in areas around disaster recovery and business continuity, with many cus-tomer suffering data loss in the last year. Data protection policies appear to be stretched to the point of failure for a lot of companies and resellers could find a door opening if they ad-dress that problem.

“Resellers should be pitching a hy-brid approach when it comes to data protection – combining on-premise resources for fast backup, with a form of cloud storage for secure off-site pro-tection and archiving of critical files.

“This hybrid approach is increas-ingly popular for all organisations, but is particularly appealing for SMBs as they can successfully protect their growing volume of data with limited budget constraints,” says Chris Ross, vice-president of data management at CA Technologies.

“With a hybrid or cloud-based so-lution, organisations can get fast, reli-able off-site protection of critical data on a straightforward subscription basis that keeps costs low and pre-dictable,” he adds.

The way resellers approach con-versations with customers needs to avoid concentrating on the speeds and feeds and manages to work with the customer.

Management consultancyTerry Greer-King, UK managing director at Check Point, talks of the need to pitch consultative and prob-lem-solving skills.

“So many companies have built up piecemeal security solutions over the years, precisely because they’ve bought products to deal with specific issues and just bolted them on. They’ve now got the problem of man-aging all these different products and devices, while keeping up with the latest threats and changes in their or-ganisations. While this is going on, the board is telling the IT team to cut costs,” he says.

“This complexity, and the internal and external pressures, is causing more risk and creating vulnerabili-ties. My advice would be to listen to what the customer’s issues are, and

then propose solutions to deal with those – which could be based around products, or managed services, or both,” he adds.

Listening is going to be vital be-cause customers have quite a lot to talk about. It’s not just about the need to be secure but also about the reality of the current economic situation.

Customers recognise they have to keep security defences high and pro-tect themselves, but that is happen-ing against a backdrop of continued tight budgets.

Resellers have to walk a tightrope between pitching the solution but not making it look too complicated and expensive.

“Resellers looking to pitch secu-rity solutions need to demonstrate they understand these evolving cus-tomer needs and they’re able to work with vendors to successfully deliver solutions using the budget that customers do have available, effectively solving their challenges in a simplified way,” says Bartho-lomew at Sophos. ■

more online› Threat of EU data protection changes felt in security budgets

› WatchGuard raises SMB channel proposition

› Juniper buys Mykonos to plug network security gap

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The Convergence Summit events bring together leading players from the following sectors; Data, Voice, Mobile, Security, The Cloud, Virtualisation and Collaboration.

there are just so many reasons to attend... Maybe you want to meet suppliers offering data and connectivity solutions such as Servercentre, Griffin, Be Wholesale and entanet.

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or focus remains on informing visitors – not just as to what products are available or about to come to market but also on how to integrate these new applications in to an established portfolio and make margin!

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10.30am Understanding & Selling CollaborationWe work in increasingly dispersed workgroups so how can we use communications to achieve competitive advantage through effective collaboration techniques? What are the basics required to leverage improved productivity and how can these applications be implemented easily and cost effectively. These are just some of the questions we’ll be asking our expert industry panel together with that vital channel question; ‘how do I get the skill sets to play in this market and what kind of return can I expect? Speakers: Ty Gardner of Comms-Solve, Cisco, TBC

11.30am The role of mobile in convergenceThis presentation will show delegates where the mobile sits within an integrated and converged communications infrastructure. Delegates to this session will learn how they can add mobile easily in to a portfolio so that new income streams can be realised as well as having stickier customers.Speakers: TBC

12.30pm Understanding MS LyncIf you have not heard of it before, Microsoft Lync is the technology giant’s latest iteration of what used to be called Office Communicator (OCS) - and for many in the know, it is thought destined to have a profound effect on business communication, collaboration and connectivity. However, as well as internal organisational impact, it will also have significant ramifications for the more ‘traditional’ communications technologies, as services such as video conferencing and conference calls. In a nutshell, is the point of true convergence at hand?Speakers: TBC

1.30pm What Resellers will be selling next yearNew products and technologies are redifining our market and the Channel that sells them. BT’s Wholesale Director of Channel debates what resellers will be selling in the years to come...Speakers: Mark Rosson of BT Wholesale Indirect Channel

2.30pm Facts not Fiction - Analysts reportThree of the major sectors in the comms business – Communications Platforms, SIP and Hosted Telephony, are explored by our expert analysts Stephanie Watson of MZA and Matt Townend of Illume to identify where markets are buoyant and what is driving sales. The information provided will be vital to resellers planning their strategies for the coming year and beyond.Speakers: Stephanie Watson of MZA, Mat Townend of Illume

3.30pm PBX vs Hosted Shoot OutA major PBX vendor goes head to head with a Hosted Telephony provider to pitch his solution - the audience will decide the winner!Speakers: Dave Dadds of VanillaIP, Mike Smythe of Capstan Communications

Day 2 – 18th april

11am Has Video come of age?Video is probably the ultimate collaboration application and deployments are gathering a pace in both the boardroom and at the desktop. We examine the channel opportunities and at the same time dispel the myths surrounding video that have held up channel sales.Speakers: Cisco, TBC

12 noon What is the Future for the PBXThe demise of the CPE based PBX has been heralded and predicted many times. Hosted telephony for example has made a lot of noise about replacing the PBX with an OPEX based solution but the market share gained by hosted solutions must be disappointing for its proponents. Today all the talk (some would say hype) surrounds cloud based provision of applications including telephony and here we discuss how much short to medium term impact this will actually have on the CPE market.Speakers: Mark Russell of Swyx, TBC

1pm Exit Planning – Maximise Value, Avoid the pitfallsConsolidation continues to dominate talk in Channel boardrooms but the values realised by sellers can differ tremendously between like sized businesses. Our guest speaker will discuss how you can increase the value of your business, make it more attractive to potential buyers and position yourself in an increasingly competitive marketplace.Speakers: Adam Zoldan of Knight Corporate Finance

2pm The Changing Role of DistributionThis panel debate discusses the future role of the distributor in a market where the pace of change is quite breathtaking. How will distributors manage in a cloud based world where applications are just a click away from end users - let alone the resellers? To help answer those questions we have the leading players in the UK distribution market on hand for our delegates.Speakers: TBC

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10.30am What’s in the Cloud for the reseller?So far many cloud based services suppliers have been big on fluff but less clear about how resellers engage with them and most significantly, where the margins and revenues go. This panel debate examines some of the cloud based models to determine what exactly the reseller is likely to get from the cloud.Speakers: Mitel, TalkTalk Business, Gamma, Kcom

11.30am Connectivity - The Key Ingredient Getting the connectivity right is essential for cloud based services in order to deliver a smooth seamless set of applications. Get it wrong and the user will be very disappointed with results and may blame the application rather than the connection. This session examines the options for resellers and how to choose the right access products.Speakers: TalkTalk Business

12.30pm There is no universal cloud: Mapping End Users needs to your solutionsThe Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), is an industry body that champions and advocates the adoption and use of Cloud-based services by businesses and individuals. CIF supports a credible and certifiable Code of Practice that provides transparency of Cloud services such that consumers can have clarity and confidence in their choice of provider. The aim is to bring business consumers and suppliers of Cloud Services closer together in a trusted and sustainable marketplace.Speaker: Andy Burton of the Cloud Industry Forum

1.30pm Applications and Channel EngagementHow can vendors and suppliers enthusiastically engage with channel partners/ We examine some of the key applications that are channel centric and ask how resellers skill up and accrue margins. Speakers: Mitel

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3.30pm Understanding and selling Managed and Cloud based services & applicationsResellers wanting to know how the managed and cloud based applications sector is working and how they can make money from new income streams will be delighted to see that the Convergence Summit has put together a panel of expert channel suppliers. Delegates to this seminar will learn about products, sales strategies and user benefits from the experts.Speakers: TBC

Day 2 – 18th april

11am What’s in the Cloud for the reseller?So far many cloud based services suppliers have been big on fluff but less clear about how resellers engage with them and most significantly, where the margins and revenues go. This panel debate examines some of the cloud based models to determine what exactly the reseller is likely to get from the cloud.Speakers: Mitel, VanillaIP, TalkTalk Business, Gamma

12 noon The Key Ingredient Getting the connectivity right is essential for cloud based services in order to deliver a smooth seamless set of applications. Get it wrong and the user will be very disappointed with results and may blame the application rather than the connection. This session examines the options for resellers and how to choose the right access products.Speakers: Mitel, TalkTalk Business, Gamma, Kcom

1pm There is no universal cloud: Mapping End Users needs to your solutionsThe Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), is an industry body that champions and advocates the adoption and use of Cloud-based services by businesses and individuals. CIF supports a credible and certifiable Code of Practice that provides transparency of Cloud services such that consumers can have clarity and confidence in their choice of provider. The aim is to bring business consumers and suppliers of Cloud Services closer together in a trusted and sustainable marketplace.Speaker: Andy Burton of the Cloud Industry Forum

2pm Private Public & Hybrid Cloud ModelsOrganisations that embrace the cloud based model have plenty of options to choose from. From complete business process engagement to just simple off site data back up and everything in between. It’s the same when it comes to infrastructure; your own cloud, a public offering or something in between perhaps depending upon the application.Speakers: Mitel, Gamma, Kcom, Cisco

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interview

Resellers urged to share expertise as threats become more sophisticatedCheck Point president Amnon Bar-Lev talks to Simon Quicke about channel opportunities in the face of APTs

may sound simple, but it is not, “but there are people who embrace that and give more knowledge and more tools”.

Economic pressureIn response to the suggestion that those selling security can take it easy because the market is, to a degree, recession-proof – or is at least seen that way by many – Bar-Lev points out that as a sector it is not immune from economic pressure.

“We see some vendors that over-perform, but others under-perform. You have to bring very good product to the market, and security is some-thing like 4-6% of the market, and that is the place where we are. But it is not immune from the economic downturn,” he says.

Growth opportunitiesAreas offering potential for future growth include securing the cloud and protecting firms in the face of the growing consumerisation trend.

On the cloud front, Bar-Lev says there is currently most activity in the private cloud and datacentre consoli-dation, whereas the public cloud has yet to become a mainstream issue for most of its customers.

Securing consumerisation means using tools to help smartphones and tablet devices connect safely with the network, and that is an area which Check Point, along with others in the industry, is addressing, with features including remote wipe.

Aside from technology advances, Check Point is also planning further expansion. The vendor has made its fair share of acquisitions, contributing to the consolidation trend in the industry, and Bar-Lev reveals it could continue in that vein if it finds the right company and it is a good fit.

“There should be a good reason to buy, depending on if it fits. But you have to find them,” he says.

Channel commitmentWhatever happens in the future, Check Point will remain commit-ted to the channel. Bar-Lev believes that using resellers is “the right approach”, and even when it has acquired firms that have not used partners it has introduced them to a 100% indirect model.

The future, according to Bar-Lev, is one where partners will have to talk more about services and be pre-pared to deliver consultancy levels of support to customers as they face a landscape of increasingly sophisti-cated and targeted threats.

The security sector might not be immune to recession, but for those pitching the right products and ser-vices, demand from customers trying to protect their data is unlikely to di-minish any time soon. ■

“Resellers selling security expertise are converting this knowledge into services, so it is not just about integration”

security

The security market is one that demands constant in-novation to keep up with the latest threats and provide

customers with levels of protection they can trust to keep their data safe.

In the past few years of economic hardship, the security industry has been a beacon of continued spend-ing, and events such as Infosecurity Europe and the RSA Conference continue to be well attended.

Advancing threatsBut those driving the industry are only too aware that they cannot af-ford to take their foot off the pedal of innovation to cope against ever more sophisticated threats.

Amnon Bar-Lev, president of Check Point, says the stakes are high-er now, with advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks also becoming more common.

“The attacks have become much more sophisticated and the attackers are using social engineering. It is very sophisticated stuff,” he says.

As a result of some highly publi-cised threats, security has escalated to a board level conversation in most companies, which presents resellers pitching security products with an opportunity to inform and influence the strategy.

“Resellers selling security expertise are converting this knowledge into services, so it is not just about integrat-ing the product,” says Bar-Lev.

Expanding services sales is not something that every reseller will want or be able to do, but Bar-Lev is encouraging those at the highest levels of Check Point’s channel accreditation to head in that direction to ensure that they are positioning themselves as partners for the long term.

He points out that making the move from integrator to consultant

Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk march 2012 | 15

Amnon Bar-LevAmnon Bar-Lev was appointed as president of Check Point in July 2011, moving into that role after a five-year stint at the vendor.

He joined as vice-president of field operations back in 2006, and before that had hands-on channel experience at a large security integrator.

In his time at Check Point, Bar-Lev has been involved with the integration of the various technolo-gies from several acquisitions made by the company, including Pointsec and Nokia’s security appliances operation. He has also launched organically developed products through the channel.

In his current role, Bar-Lev is responsible for all customer-facing functions, including global channels, sales, marketing and technical services.

more online› Check Point secures record quarter› Check Point will buy again

research

Shifting security spending priorities set to keep resellers on their toesInterest in new solutions is rising while demand for traditional security services continues, writes Simon Quicke

fice and prove that looking after sen-sitive customer data is not a problem, 53% of respondents said data protec-tion would be a high priority this year, with a further 40% rating it as being of medium importance.

Even before the EU data protection law changes come into effect, the message from the customer base is that they plan to do more to protect their key asset.

Mobile securityAlthough it was not in the top three when it came to spending for the year, the prospects for those resellers pitching mobile endpoint security to cope with the influx of smartphones and tablets look good, with the area gaining importance this year. A significant 72% of customers rated endpoint security as a medium prior-ity, with 20% putting it high on their to-do list for 2012.

The requirement to gain better pro-tection for staff on the move is reflect-ed elsewhere in the extensive Tech-Target purchasing intentions survey, with customers placing mobile secu-rity high on their list of investments alongside the hardware and infra-structure required to underpin con-sumerisation.

Just shy of half of those surveyed, 46% revealed that mobile security would be a high priority this year, with 41% rating it as being of medi-um importance. The need for that protection is all the greater given the plans that many customers have to enhance corporate data and applica-tions for use on mobile platforms.

Cloud securityAlong with consumerisation, there is also a shift coming over the course of this year in the attitude towards cloud computing. No one quizzed by TechTarget described cloud se-curity as a low priority for this year, with 37% describing it as high and 63% as medium.

In the space of just a year, the atti-tude towards this technology has clearly shifted considerably, and re-sellers pitching solutions need to be aware of that change.

In other areas, resellers will find that some of the ‘bread and butter’

areas in the security portfolio con-tinue to deliver revenue. Threat management continues to be a high priority for users, with 61% aiming to make more efforts this year to cope with that problem. There is also an appetite to continue spend-ing on vulnerability and patch management over the course of the year ahead.

Changing prioritiesThe results of the TechTarget re-search might not hold too many surprises, but the takeaway for the reseller is to keep an eye on the speed at which priorities are shift-ing. What was fairly low down on the list when it came to divvying up

the security budget last year might well have risen to the top of the wish list in 2012.

Consumerisation and cloud might not have gained the lion’s share of in-vestment in the past, but it is clear that the customer position on those areas is changing, and moving fairly fast, so pitching into those topical areas should not be a waste of time.

But as you would expect in a mar-ket that has to offer protection on many fronts, the traditional services delivered by a security reseller con-tinue to be in demand. For those in the channel able to protect the cus-tomer against both established and emerging threats, this sector contin-ues to be a positive one to target. ■

security

To take the most simplistic view of the investment pros-pects in the security market it would be fair to say they

remain good. Despite economic woes and the troubles across the Eurozone, no one can afford to turn off their de-fences and risk exposing their com-pany to greater threat levels.

But that simplistic view is of limit-ed use to resellers – they need to know exactly where the budget is going to be aligned if they are to be successful. Although customers are planning to invest security, there are specific areas where users will feel the pressure most.

In recent weeks, there has been re-search from Teneo to suggest that first-generation firewalls are failing to provide the protection that customers need. The channel should expect some questions and subsequent in-vestment in that area as a result.

Added to that, there is evidence that the changes planned by the EU around data protection law – which would see the need for quicker dis-closure by businesses that have suf-fered a breach and a potential fine of 2% of turnover – are already trigger-ing plans to increase investment in data protection.

Those examples indicate that plen-ty is going on in the security market, but some technologies and concerns are more pressing than others.

Security investmentIn research carried out by Micro-Scope’s publisher TechTarget, which surveyed users on where they plan to spend their money, the security cat-egory featured prominently.

When asked how budgets would be spent this year, the top three areas were data protection, network-based security and vulnerability management.

There were also signs that con-sumerisation and remote access are starting to have an impact on the budget, with mobile endpoint secu-rity and cloud virtualisation security both featuring in the top eight areas where money is being allocated.

Understandably, with all of the pressure to keep on the right side of the Information Commissioners Of-

Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk March 2012 | 16

Security initiatives planned in 2012

Priority of mobile device security

Source: MicroScope/TechTarget

Source: MicroScope/TechTarget

technology

Complex threats and tight budgets open security sales opportunitiesAs the range of threats facing companies grows, so do sales opportunities for security resellers, writes Ian Kilpatrick

IT managers face a growing number of complex security threats to their networks

The range and complexity of security threats has created more problems for IT managers on restricted budgets

security

The Infosecurity Europe ex-hibition is almost upon us again, the annual opportu-nity to find out about the lat-

est in security. Visitors, however, will be going to the show this year with a different mindset.

A greater range of threats, more complex threats and how to deal with these threats on a limited budget and with static staff numbers, will be the thoughts uppermost in visitors’ minds, as well as how they can man-age this multiplicity of threats and fulfil their legal and compliance re-quirements.

Many more security issues concern IT managers today. These include se-curity around the consumerisation of equipment, such as laptops and smartphones, ever-increasing remote access, data loss, virtualisation, con-vergence, the growing use of mobile devices, compliance and the prob-lems of trying to manage and report on a multiplicity of security devices, sometimes spread across a number of different locations

The multiplicity of threats means a multiplicity of opportunities for re-sellers, selling solutions which pro-tect from a broad range of threats and individual point solutions.

Manage network securityUnified Threat Management (UTM) appliances, for example, are even more appropriate for securing net-works in today’s multiple threat scenario, because of their ability to cover and report on a range of secu-rity issues in one device. Check Point and WatchGuard provide well-estab-lished UTM appliances.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions are in-valuable because they give IT manag-ers an overview of the security throughout their organisation, cover-ing all deployed security solutions.

SIEM systems log all network ac-tivity, providing reports and alerts, as well as correlating security events, so any concerted, but apparently unre-lated, attacks across the network, can be identified. Solutions are available from suppliers such as LogLogic.

In an environment with limited budgets and limited staff, Security as

Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk march 2012 | 17

a Service (SaaS) presents a good op-portunity which can shift security costs from capital expenditure to op-erational expenditure.

SaaS ranges from outsourcing sin-gle security functions, such as anti-virus, to providing full, managed multi-function security.

Developing trends over the last year have produced specific opportu-nities for VARs.

The consumerisation of devices (BYOD), for example, is a real prob-lem for many companies now. Em-ployees are using their own phones, their own tablets, their own laptops, and their own PCs much more.

The issues around this are how to manage all these devices so they can be monitored for compliance purpos-

es, so that they fall within the compa-ny security policy, and, critically, so that they don’t put the company net-work at risk.

The opportunity for the reseller here is to make a straightforward sale with mobile device management so-lutions such as MaaS360. Such solu-tions provide features for monitoring, managing and securing mobile devic-es, bringing them into the company fold while still allowing employees to use them productively.

Virtualisation opportunitiesVirtualisation has provided major cost savings, but security has lagged far behind, creating risks where or-ganisations were previously secure. Most deployments lack virtual server

or desktop security. There are major opportunities in this area with solu-tions from Check Point, WatchGuard, Kaspersky Lab and others.

Convergence is a rapidly develop-ing area, with the increasing use of smartphones and applications such as VoIP. Many users are not yet aware of the security implications of con-vergence and don’t realise that many traditional firewalls are not designed to provide protection in converged environments.

Some resellers are cautious about entering the convergence arena, but converged security solutions range from simple mobile phone security, which is an uncomplicated sale, through to full IP network converged security systems.

The right distributor can help edu-cate resellers about this market so they can take full advantage of the move to convergence. Kasperksy Lab provides mobile phone security solu-tions, with suppliers such as Sam-sung offering comprehensive con-verged network protection.

Data loss continues to be a major worry for companies, but can be rela-tively easily minimised by simply improving authentication and em-ploying encryption.

Most firms still use simple, un-changing passwords which can be cracked by social engineering or brute force attacks. Soft or hard au-thentication options are available, in-cluding smartphone authentication. Two-factor authentication can be de-ployed where appropriate. Vasco and CryptoCard offer solutions.

Encryption for data on the move is a very easy, low-cost sale with solu-tions such as encrypted flash drives, encrypted external hard drives and encrypted optical discs from suppli-ers such as Imation.

The range and complexity of secu-rity threats has multiplied in the last year. This has created more problems for IT managers on restricted budgets and with restricted staff numbers. Savvy VARs can take advantage of this situation to profit from security sales, while providing the protection their clients want and need. ■

Ian Kilpatrick is chairman of Wick hill Group

opinion

include multiple platforms and often complex combinations of devices.

This can be a challenge for even the most security-savvy IT departments. Services and solutions that can manage and automate the security infrastruc-ture can significantly reduce the pain and pressure on IT departments and allow them to focus on supporting the business rather than the threats to it.

Consumerisation2012 has been tagged as the year for ‘mobile ascendancy’ by analyst com-pany IDC, which believes it will be the first year that mobile devices will

overtake PCs in terms of shipments and spending. With a flood of new devices connecting to corporate net-works, tech-wise employees are chal-lenging organisations by demanding their business applications run on smartphones and tablets.

While users may be aware of the technology that can enable them to do their jobs differently or more ef-fectively, they are not necessarily equipped with the knowledge or tools to do so securely. A user with a mobile device could risk spreading viruses between networks and the same employee could just as easily

be storing sensitive company data in a cloud-based storage platform, unwittingly breaking data security compliance regulations.

CollaborationUniquely placed between technol-ogy vendors and users, the channel combines expert product knowledge with the ability to understand busi-ness needs and deliver solutions. Collaboration is key. Whether it is a mobile device supplier partnering with pen testing experts or virtu-alisation specialists with managed service providers, the challenge for the channel is to find new ways to work together.

With the increasing need for spe-cialists to manage an increasingly complex IT security landscape and the shortage of IT skills in user organ-isations not abating, the future can be a secure one for the channel. ■

David Caughtry is director of core technology at ComputerLinks

The channel is in a unique position to collaborate and capitalise on the opportunities presented by compliance, complexity and consumerisation

security

There is no shortage of pun-dits telling us why the IT security market is important. Channel analyst firm Canalys

anticipates that the global mobile security market alone will grow to $3bn by 2015, while Gartner predicts that by year-end 2016 over 50% of Global 1,000 companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in the cloud and forecasts the financial im-pact of cybercrime growing 10% per year as new security vulnerabilities are discovered.

With this kind of evidence in abundance and new technologies around cloud, virtualisation and mobile computing becoming mainstream, the security market is particularly important to the chan-nel. Sitting, as it does, between technology providers and technol-ogy users, the channel is in a unique position to collaborate and capitalise on the opportunities pre-sented by three key drivers behind IT security: compliance, complexity and consumerisation.

ComplianceFor organisations, compliance equates to operating in line with stated regulations, standards and best practices. Requirements can be gov-erned at many levels and may differ from country to country. With high-profile data breaches being widely reported in the press, organisations must seriously consider the risks and costs of non-compliance when it comes to IT security.

Take the example of organisations in financial services or retail. To protect their customers’ data, credit card companies must follow strict PCI regulations on data security. If they don’t, not only could they incur massive financial penalties, but they could also lose the trust of their clients and partners.

Added to this, any datacentre offer-ing third-party services must adhere to rigorous security standards such as ISO 27001. They also have to imple-ment exacting management and au-diting guidelines, including SAS 70, to ensure systems are maintained in line with best practice.

ComplexityWith next-generation datacentres that demand increasingly sophisticated networking infrastructures come complex rules and policies governing access and security. With growth still predicted by the analysts in mature, but not yet commoditised IT security technologies, antivirus and firewall solutions remain a must-have for organisations that are increasing the perimeter of their IT security needs to

Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk marCh 2012 | 18

Three Cs of security spell a secure future for the channelDavid Caughtry considers the importance of the market for security products and services

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March 2012 | 19Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk

readers’ letters

send your letters and comments tosquicke@techtarget.com

Why businesses need to shape up their data managementKevin Norlin, general manager and vice-president, Quest Software (EMEa)I read with interest your article, Changes in data breach laws get the thumbs up. The European Commis-sion’s proposed rule that serious data breaches will need to be reported to the national supervisory authority and affected citizens within 24 hours is undoubtedly going to be a struggle for many organisations.

The aggressive proposal, which is unquestionably a result of the sharp increase in public data breaches in

the past year, is going to force many businesses to shape up the way infor-mation is stored and shared, inside and outside of the organisation.

As the information commissioner commented, data protection is under threat from the continuing economic recession. In these times of austerity, organisations are pushing budgets as far as possible, and security is one of the first things that can get neglected, particularly as such functions have traditionally been perceived as costly.

This is a timely reminder of the risks that firms can impose on them-selves and their customers if the right precautions to protect information are

not followed, and the mess they can get into if measures to detect such breaches are lax. Similar to a game of football, a ‘red card’ violation such as a data breach can be extremely damaging to any organisation, and with fines of up to 2% of annual global turnover, such breaches can be controversial, even crippling.

A unified approach to managing cloud services brings benefitschris O’Malley, cEO, NimsoftThe use of cloud service providers does not eliminate the need for busi-nesses to monitor the performance and availability of critical services. On the contrary, it is still important to identify problems and hold service providers accountable.

So rather than relying exclusively on the monitoring and reporting offered by each cloud service pro-vider, it is advisable to implement a comprehensive solution for monitor-ing any and all externally provided services. Such a solution will help ensure the success of cloud comput-ing initiatives by measuring all key services and applications in real time.

Ideally, this monitoring solution should unify the entire operational IT infrastructure, bringing both inter-nally and externally provisioned ser-vices under the umbrella of a single IT monitoring and management pro-cess. This unified approach is the most cost-effective way to ensure that all IT services are meeting the needs of the business in terms of perfor-mance and availability.

Careful planning is key to making a success of cloud implementationshaseet Sanghrajka, managing director, ST consultingWith Microsoft’s marketing budget pointed clearly towards cloud com-puting and online services, there can be little doubt where software provision is heading. Yet as busi-nesses embrace the model, revelling in the faster uptime and lower cost of ownership, they must be careful not to throw out everything they know about successful project delivery.

There is something about the instant gratification of buying enter-prise software online that seems to make otherwise vigilant IT decision-makers lose their heads. The promise of free trials or petty cash-sized monthly subscriptions and the chance to gain immediate access to the hottest new functionality appears to trigger irrational behaviour.

In their haste to get started, compa-nies risk casting aside key steps that guarantee a successful project – including the importance of scoping and planning an optimised imple-mentation, as well as data migration

chris James, EMEa marketing director, Virtual Instruments Big Data will get bigger – and with that the pressure on infrastructure managers to provide reliable, cost-effective IT services will become stronger.

As a result, while some organisations will choose to invest in making their datacentres more stable, others will outsource some of their applications to service providers to alleviate this pressure. This presents channel businesses with two opportunities: to help companies going for the in-house option to improve the availability of their systems and networks; and to add the provision of cloud-based services to their portfolio.

In both cases, the key is ensuring that any issue in the datacentre is identified before it starts affecting the business. While in data networking this has been possible for many years, in the storage network this has, until recently, been a black hole. Traditional tools gave visibility of elements, but today’s resellers and managed service providers can take advantage of new developments that offer a true end-to-end view.

Big Data is a concern for many organisations because it is costly to store, manage and protect. Moving it is also an issue because migration is a delicate operation, and if you can’t see what your system is doing in detail and in real time, you might be faced with significant latency to the applications running the business.

For resellers looking to support their customers’ response to big data with datacentre upgrades, or planning to lift the burden by hosting the relevant applications themselves, the ability to have a clear and all-encompassing view of their SAN will make a dramatic difference to the service level agree-ments they can comfortably commit themselves to.

Successful resellers will ensure that networks, storage systems and applications are as reliable and available as possible, even when big data has become bigger data.

Turning big data into big money

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and role-based user training.None of this is to undermine the

business case for cloud solutions. A pay-monthly subscription and the chance to make upgrades and support someone else’s problem carry poten-tially significant cost of ownership benefits, while appealing to account-ants by avoiding capital spending.

The disclaimer, rather, is to ensure that such calculations are made only once consultancy, project planning, customised implementation and training have been provided for. Chances are, the investment needed can be controlled by using packaged rapid implementation methodologies.

There is no denying the cloud speeds up implementation time when compared with traditional on-premise software; use that wisely to plan your implementation – the results will be rewarding, as will the return on investment. ■

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mesmerised by the potential rewards and understand all the stages you need to go through to get there.” That’s something that has stuck with me.

What advice would you give to someone starting out in IT?I think it’s important to remember: Short-term pain for long-term gain. Understand what your end goal is and do what you can to gain the experience and qualifications you need to get there.

Will Windows 8 be the new XP or the new Vista?Microsoft always gets it right in the end. It learnt hard lessons with Vista, but it got there with Windows 7. I am looking forward to seeing what Windows 8 brings us.

What does the next five years hold for the channel?The channel will become slimmer, fitter and leaner as the driving forces of voice and data convergence combined with application developer hosted solutions dominate the mid-market.

We’ve learnt in the past that a seismic shift in technology always creates winners and losers. Successful channel partners must quickly evolve or wither on the vine as cloud dominates the mid-market.

The key to success will be in the project management and delivery of multiple applications, products and services within a one touch, one bill, one service level framework – irrespective of the application provider or the hosting originator.

Tell us something most people do not know about youI am a musician; I play the piano and guitar. Music is a great passion of mine, but people are often surprised when I tell them.

If you were facing awesome peril and impossible odds, which real or fictional person would you most want on your side and why?James Bond – I like to think we’re similar people and I know we would make a great team.

What goal do you have to achieve before you die, and why?To see all the people that I care about, happy and fulfilled.

What is the best book you have ever read?Silvertown. It’s the story of the East End of London and the people who have come out of it over the past 100 years. As an East-End boy, I found it fascinating.

What is the worst film you have ever seen?It’s got to be Black Sheep, a film I stumbled across one night on the telly. It’s a film, set in New Zealand, about these aggressive sheep that go around savaging humans – hilarious and horrendous at the same time.

What would be your desert island MP3s?All Along The Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix; Coming Into Los Angeles by Arlo Guthrie; and Almost Cut My Hair by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

What was your first car and how does it compare with what you drive now?A Vauxhall Victor, it cost me £120 second-hand – you couldn’t even buy a wing mirror for that these days, could you? She had a three-speed gearbox and hit her limit at 70mph, but you could get your hands dirty with your car back then – I could fix her myself if she conked out on the motorway. These days I’m driving an Audi A8. She doesn’t break down, but if she did I wouldn’t have a clue.

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with, and why?An IT salesman – we’d bore each other to death.

If you could be any animal for a day, what would you be and why?A bird – I’m not bothered what type, just a bird. I’d love to have the freedom to fly around and do what I want without a care in the world.

If you could represent your home country at one event in the 2012 Olympics, which would you choose and why?Swimming, because it’s the only one I can still do.

A grizzly bear and a silverback gorilla are getting ready for a no-holds-barred rumble. Who is your money on and why?The Gorilla would win because he’s clever and is bound to cheat. ■

fIVe-MInuTe InTerVIeW

Tell us what you do for a livingManaging director, intY.

Why are you the right person for this job?I have the enthusiasm, tenacity, focus, experience and drive to go that extra mile – not to mention charm and intellect!

What gets you up in the morning?It’s not easy – I need to be sweet-talked into it. No, in all seriousness, the challenge of the day ahead is what makes me shoot out of bed.

Who helped you get to where you are today?Myself and a huge dose of hard work.

What is the best or worst business advice you have received, and from whom?Someone once advised me to sell my company for shares rather than cash – suffice to say, I wish I hadn’t.

The best piece of advice anyone has ever gave me was: “Never be

read more five-minute interviews atwww.microscope.co.uk

Chris BaldockintYMicroScope puts its questions to Chris Baldock, managing director of intY

Daily channel news at MicroScope.co.uk MArCH 2012 | 20