Monday Morning Impact – August 25

Published On: August 26, 2014Categories: Buzz, Uncategorized

By Ken Presti, Senior Consultant, Channel Impact

Riverbed Names Paul Mountford Chief Sales Officer

Riverbed Technology has announced the hiring of former Cisco channel chief Paul Mountford as its new senior vice president and Chief Sales Officer. In his new role, Mountford will oversee day-to-day operations for both direct and indirect sales, and will also oversee Riverbed’s channel ecosystem.

After 16 years at Cisco where at various points he managed the company’s channel organization, its $34 billion enterprise business, and became the first executive to lead the company’s emerging markets business, Mountford served as CEO of Sentillian, a New York-based web intelligence startup focused on monitoring publicly shared content. Prior to joining Cisco, Mountford owned a channel development consultancy where he helped US-based companies develop successful channel strategies for successfully entering international markets.

Mountford will report to David Peranich, Riverbed’s president of worldwide field operations.

Channel Impact:
Mountford is an accomplished channel veteran and a consummate showman who knows how to motivate, manage and reward partners. Although his responsibility includes both direct and indirect sales, look for Riverbed to begin leveraging Mountford’s extensive indirect sales experience.

Fortinet Names Luanne Tierney Vice President of Marketing

In this week’s second major hiring move involving former Cisco executives, Fortinet has announced the appointment of Luanne Tierney as its new vice president of marketing.

In her new role, Tierney will be responsible for the company’s corporate marketing strategy and operations, as well as spearheading strategy and initiatives for Fortinet’s field, channel and social/digital marketing efforts. Most recently vice president of global partner marketing at Juniper Networks, Tierney has been recognized by Forrester for delivering the most innovative partner marketing in the industry for 2013. She is also widely known for an innovative initiative to help channel partners accelerate their marketing skills. The program was launched during her tenure at Cisco and continued while she was at Juniper.

Channel Impact:
An accomplished marketer and an outstanding presenter, Luanne’s hiring represents the arrival of another key channel advocate at Fortinet.

Gartner: Worldwide Security Spending to Grow Nearly 8 Percent

Gartner, Inc. predicts that worldwide spending on information security will reach $71.1 billion this year, representing a 7.9 percent increase over 2013. The market researcher also predicts that number will grow an additional 8.2 percent in 2015, correlating to a market of nearly $77 billion next year.

Drivers of the growth include rapid adoption of mobility, cloud, and social media.
“This Nexus of Forces is impacting security in terms of new vulnerabilities,” said Gartner research director Lawrence Pingree. “It is also creating new opportunities to improve effectiveness, particularly as a result of better understanding security threats by using contextual information and other security intelligence.”

Pingree’s report also predicts that approximately 10 percent of overall IT security enterprise product capabilities will be delivered in the cloud by 2015. More than 30 percent of security controls deployed to the small or midsize business (SMB) segment will be cloud-based in the same time frame. And by the end of 2015, about 30 percent of infrastructure protection products will be purchased as part of a suite offering.

By 2018, more than half of organizations will use security services firms that specialize in data protection, security risk management and security infrastructure management, according to the report.

Channel Impact:
If you ever had any doubts about the validity of security as an important market opportunity for the channel, then here you go! Customers need help in beefing up their defenses, and they turn to the channel for that help.

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