Monday Morning Impact – October 12

AirWatch Introduces Mobile Security Alliance

Atlanta-based AirWatch has introduced a new Mobile Security Alliance with 10 initial members, who pledge interoperability and tight integration with the AirWatch platform. Charter members include Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, FireEye, Appthority, Lookout, Pradeo, Proofpoint, Skycure, Veracode and Zimperium.

Multiple security studies report that mobile devices pose some of the biggest cybersecurity challenges for enterprises, with many organizations still uncertain about how to fully manage and secure devices to prevent these attacks. As organizations enter the mobile-cloud era, new mobile business workflows increase the security exposure of corporate data. The new alliance is designed to promote confidence in various combined solutions as a means of strengthening defense at the device, application and network.

Potential threats identified by the technologies of alliance members are communicated to AirWatch, which then takes automatic and administrator-defined compliance actions to protect the devices, user information and corporate data.

To become part of the AirWatch Mobile Security Alliance, security vendors must integrate with AirWatch APIs, provide easy to deploy solutions and leverage the AirWatch compliance engine for device remediation.

Channel Impact
With security solutions evolving rapidly to meet the ever-changing threat vector, alliances such as this one can be instrumental in shoring up defenses at a wide variety of points. However, maintaining high quality defenses while at the same time, preserving effective integration can be a tall order.

Silver Peak Launches New Global Channel Partner Program

Silver Peak, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based vendor specializing in broadband and hybrid wide area networks (WANs), today announced the launch of the company’s new global partner program designed to attract, educate and enable channel partners pursuing the software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) market.

“Silver Peak is providing an unprecedented opportunity for partners to help their customers reduce the high cost and complexity of MPLS networking by deploying broadband,” said Bob Bruce, Silver Peak’s senior vice president of worldwide channel sales. “By increasing our channel investments and building relevancy around the SD-WAN opportunity, Silver Peak will intensify our focus on helping partners acquire net-new accounts.”

The new program comprises three levels – Summit, Ascent, and Registered, in declining order of recognition. The company has new SD-WAN certification training for sales professionals and plans to complement it with an SD-WAN certification program for system engineers. These online certifications enable partners and acknowledge them for their expertise in Silver Peak solutions.

Channel Impact
The market potential is clearly present. In addition, the strategy is led by Bob Bruce, who comes to the table with extensive experience that included executive-level positions at Cisco and Juniper.

Fortinet Hires New Chief Marketing Officer

Fortinet, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based security vendor has named Holly Rollo as the company’s chief marketing officer.

Rollo joins Fortinet from FireEye, where she served as vice president of corporate marketing and played a key role in brand development and the strengthening of that company’s demand generation efforts. Prior to FireEye, she served in various senior marketing roles, including chief marketing officer, chief of strategy and executive board member for SumTotal Systems, and vice president, global demand generation, events, digital/web and worldwide field marketing at SuccessFactors. During her career, she has also held various roles at Cisco, SAP, and IBM/Tivoli.

“This is a phenomenal opportunity for any marketer today,” said Rollo. “I’m honored to be part of the team, and excited to help expand Fortinet’s brand as we drive closer toward becoming the global leader in network security.”

Rollo’s appointment follows the addition of Oracle’s Chief Marketing Officer Judith Sim to Fortinet’s Board of Directors.

Channel Impact
Specific channel plans were undisclosed, but increased marketing and business development efforts are likely to help partners to gain traction.