Palo Alto Networks Channel Chief On Why AI, Platformization Go Hand-In-Hand

When it comes to AI, ‘you can't have products from different vendors and expect to be able to leverage AI to its fullest,’ Palo Alto Networks’ Michael Khoury tells CRN.

Palo Alto Networks expects to “rely on partners more” for delivery of its broad cybersecurity platform in coming years as the company also focuses in on enabling greater usage of GenAI-powered security, Palo Alto Networks Channel Chief Michael Khoury told CRN.

Khoury, who joined the cybersecurity giant in August 2024 after serving most recently as head of partner strategy at ServiceNow, said in an interview that his team is preparing a revamp of Palo Alto Networks’ channel program that will debut at the start of the company’s next fiscal year this coming August.

[Related: Palo Alto Networks To ‘Change How Cybersecurity Is Done’ With AI Launch: CPO Lee Klarich]

A major emphasis for the forthcoming program update — and in the months leading up to it — will continue to be on enabling partners around Palo Alto Networks’ “platformization” strategy, Khoury said.

Starting just under a year ago, the company announced an aggressive new growth strategy aimed at accelerating tool consolidation on its cybersecurity platform, which spans security for network, cloud, application and security operations.

Khoury, whose title is vice president for ecosystem partners at Palo Alto Networks, pointed to the “faster growth” that the vendor is seeing in the “next-generation” areas beyond its core firewalls business — indicating where the company is looking to focus with partners.

At the same time, as AI has rapidly become a top priority for many organizations, Palo Alto Networks is seeking to show how its array of GenAI-powered capabilities actually go hand-in-hand with platformization, he said.

When it comes to AI, “you can't have products from different vendors and expect to be able to leverage AI to its fullest,” Khoury said. “So I think that whole conversation around getting value out of AI requires more of that thinking around a platform strategy — which aligns with security from one vendor instead of multiple different vendors.”

Ultimately, “I see a bigger opportunity for a company like Palo Alto” in this environment, he said.

Prior to ServiceNow and Palo Alto Networks, Khoury spent 14 years at Cisco, including in the role of head of partner profitability for his last four years at the company.

In terms of the planned update for the Palo Alto Networks channel program, Khoury said it’s clear that “we have a really strong foundation in our programs.”

“However, we definitely need to evolve to where we want to go,” he said.

What follows is an edited portion of CRN’s interview with Khoury.

What has been your focus on in your first few months in this role?

I spent my first 30 to 60 days in a lot of meetings and doing a lot of listening. Before you engage in any change, you want to meet not just with the internal team members, but also with partners. So I’ve been reaching out to some partners and listening to them as well. And I can say, so far, I'm very pleased. We have a really strong foundation in our programs. However, we definitely need to evolve to where we want to go.

Obviously, you hear about our future direction on our earnings announcements — where [CEO] Nikesh [Arora] and [CFO] Dipak [Golechha] talk about recurring revenue and our platformization strategy and next-gen security. We want our ecosystem to help us move in that direction. So I've been focusing on assessing our programs, assessing what we have.

I've been focusing on both the requirement side — what do we ask partners to do? — and I've been focusing on looking at our incentives and benefits and what we offer in return. The foundation is there, but definitely those knobs — those requirements and benefits knobs — we definitely need to turn them in a direction where we want to go that supports our company's strategy around the entire platform, and not just point products, and not just the firewall side of it. Obviously, that's where we come from a cybersecurity standpoint. But if you look at all the growth and where we're going, we're going toward more that next-gen security side of the house.

As I meet with partners and I listen to them, they love Palo Alto, they love the product, they love the technology. They love all the advantages it brings them. So now my job is honestly easier, because the product is solid and they love what we have. The rest of it is for me to ensure we were building the program as the right vehicle to support our go-to-market strategy.

As far as enabling partners to focus on platformization, how are you thinking of incentivizing that?

If we look at our growth, you can see it in our earnings. You can see we're growing at a faster pace on that [next-gen products] side. The incentive is always important, but what is also important is training and enablement. You can't expect an ecosystem to learn something new and be able to execute on it — both from a sales and go-to-market, and from delivery and support [perspective] — without giving them the right training and enablement. So I'm going to be focusing on the program holistically. I want to make sure we provide them with the vehicle, from a training and enablement and support [perspective], so they are successful. We're going to be putting more focus and emphasis on it.

The program has two levers — the incentive is one lever, but the requirement is another lever as well. So we're looking at adjusting both levers. We’re looking at the requirement side, and we're looking at the incentive, and we're looking at how we support and train and enable them. That's what my team is working on, and that's really where I expect us to launch some of those changes in the beginning of our new fiscal year [in August]. The reason why we're thinking of the new fiscal year is, frankly, because some of the changes we need to make in that evolution require us to build these capabilities. You can't just make a change without showing the ecosystem how well they're doing, how they can access these benefits, how they can access the training. So we need our own IT organization to build the capabilities that deliver on those changes. And we need to give them a little bit of time to do that.

Are there certain product segments that are seeing especially strong growth and demand with partners? And how does the evolution of AI fit in?

When I look at the growth and the trajectory across Cortex and [Prisma] Cloud, I'm seeing a lot of that focus really going there. [Prisma] SASE is a big area for us and a big advantage. Even our global SIs are realizing this. In the past, their role was, let me buy the best-in-class from different vendors and bring it together and integrate it for the customer. That's in a nutshell how an SI used to think. But now, we’re evolving to this model where we’re truly a platform with end-to-end security. And if you truly want to leverage capabilities like a [Security Operations Center], one dashboard, managing all these threats — it’s not as easy to do that anymore with point products from different vendors. So I think they're looking at Palo Alto and saying, “There is value in that platformization strategy.” And yes, every company after Palo has said, “Oh, we’ve got a platform as well.” But if you truly dig deeper into it, and you look at their solution, it doesn't cover the same area and the same technology spectrum that Palo has. So we feel that whole model of point products being integrated, and that's the solution, I think that's moving away more toward a managed service. So you're seeing more and more focus on that area.

[When it comes to AI] you can't have products from different vendors and expect to be able to leverage AI to its fullest. So I think that whole conversation around getting value out of AI requires more of that thinking around a platform strategy — which aligns with security from one vendor instead of multiple different vendors. I'm excited about that. I see a bigger opportunity for a company like Palo Alto [in this environment].

What is your overall message to partners right now, around what you're looking to do next with them?

If you're not focusing on next-gen security, you definitely need to look there. Because you're going to be rewarded more, you're going to be recognized more, and your value will be more amplified within Palo Alto and with the customers. That's No. 1. No. 2, if you can invest more on the delivery side and offer some kind of delivery capability, I think that's a big one. Because we're seeing a lot of demand — and frankly, Palo Alto wants partners to do more of that delivery. We're not going to be adding more people to [take] delivery away from partners. We're going to count on partners to do those implementations. So I would say to partners, if you want something that is margin-rich and that has big opportunities — and if you have that foundation around implementation — I would say, double [down on] that and come along with us on that next-gen security [journey]. The market is there, and we’re going to rely on partners more [in those areas].

Also, definitely keep that focus around the entire platform, so our customers can realize the [full] value of what they're getting. And it can also reduce the threats. You can definitely help customers, if you do more across the platform versus just point products.

Close