Symantec Exec: Partners Are Critical To Our Success After Blue Coat Acquisition
Fresh off the closing of its blockbuster acquisition of Blue Coat Systems, Symantec channel leadership said the company is more committed than ever to its partners.
’We want to lead with you,’ Eric Foy, director of channel sales for North America, said to a room full of partners at XChange 2016 in San Antonio, Tex. ’That’s what Symantec’s commitment is: To not only bring these solutions to bear, but also to do that in a way that takes advantage of all the partners we have.’
The comments come just three weeks after Symantec closed its blockbuster $4.65 billion acquisition of Blue Coat Systems, bringing together its own vast endpoint, email, user authentication and web security portfolio with Blue Coat’s cloud and web security offerings.
The combined company’s commitment to the channel will only get bigger as the integration progresses, Foy said.
’When you think about the commitment Symantec makes to our partners: We are nearly twice the size of our next nearest competitor with the partners we do business with. It’s going to be bigger,’ Foy said. ’Our success is predicated on our partnerships.’
Foy said there is ’already a lot of work underway’ regarding the integration of the two product portfolios, which he said not only bring together a complementary set of technologies, but also a vast network of threat intelligence.
’The synergies between Symantec and Blue Coat, they are significant and that integration work is underway so we can incorporate this into what it means for the partnerships we can go to market with,’ Foy said.
In particular, that integration will put emphasis on the technology capabilities the two companies have around advanced threat protection, cloud security and threat intelligence. Foy said Symantec will also drive a focus around security-as-a-service, a portfolio area that will ’grow fast’ in the months to come. Foy said these capabilities will help prepare Symantec partners and their clients for the ’next generation of cloud’ and to ’define the future of cybersecurity.’
’It has never been a better place to be within Symantec and a partner of Symantec than right now,’ Foy said. ’The opportunity we have is to take advantage of what the cloud is bringing to all of you from all of your customers and bring that to the partner ecosystem.’
Michael Knight, president and chief technology officer at Encore Technology Group, a Greenville, S.C.-based Blue Coat partner, said those messages around technology and commitment are important to partners. But he said Symantec will also need to focus on building its brand back up to meet those goals.
’I think it would have been far more impactful had they outlined the past successes and the great technology they do have, but also focused on rebuilding the trust and the brand and how partners not only trust the combined organizations, but how we will work together around the globe,’ Knight said.
Knight said rebuilding that trust, as well as lining up a top-notch combined leadership team, will be critical to Symantec re-gaining its momentum in the channel and in the security market going forward.