Symantec's Thompson Addresses Consolidation, SaaS At Partner Engage

(San Diego) — The 2007 Symantec Partner Engage event hosted more than 300 of the company's top resellers for two days of informational downloads, Symantec company updates, partner awards, training sessions, and morale-building. Chairman and CEO John Thompson's keynote started off by describing how the security landscape is changing, with more emphasis now placed on securing mobile devices. In a move clearly designed to ease partner concerns about industry consolidation, Thompson said, "Vendor and distributor consolidation is natural in any mature market. The Symantec/VERITAS merger moved us into the world of convergence, where storage, security, and network management are all coming together. This convergence will provide Symantec and our partners with bigger sales opportunities. We must do a better job of telling our partners the 'what' and the 'why' regarding our acquisitions and growth plans."

Some of the best advice of the day came from Tom Kendra, group president, security and data management. Kendra said, "Sell security at a higher level. Partners must force the security conversations to happen at the highest levels within their customers' businesses." He's right. Security integrators will be more successful when presenting the business challenges caused by security breaches, instead of speaking in technical terms such as network intrusion prevention and data leakage.

Thompson: SaaS Has Its Place For Symantec Partners
During a conversation with John Thompson, I asked him about Symantec's position on SaaS (software as a service) and how the advent of SaaS may hurt Symantec partners. "Every time there is a sea change in this industry, people pause and try to determine the effect of that change on them," responded Thompson. "SaaS is no different; partners are waiting to see where they fit in. The SaaS software distribution model will help us add incremental business, since there are many customers that have not been touched by the traditional software distribution model. No matter how SaaS evolves, we will make sure that our partners are included in this opportunity."

In the company's first foray into SaaS, Symantec will launch (before the end of 2007) its online backup service that is part of the Symantec Protection Network. Symantec plans to add an array of services over the next 18 to 24 months to complement the backup and recovery service, and all will be sold through partners. "We should not look at SaaS as a boogeyman that's going to eat up the channel," said Thompson. "We should look at this just like any other software product. We made a commitment to the channel, and as the packaging and distribution models for our products change, we will make sure to bring our partners along with us."

With all the hype of SaaS, the question remains as to where the demand for it is coming from — vendors or customers. "Both," answered Thompson. "Even the largest enterprises in the world have problems with backup success rates. If those companies have problems with backups, one can assume there is a declining rate of success as you move down to the smaller enterprises. The market is definitely driving this shift. Our answer is to rearchitect products in our portfolio to meet the needs of SaaS customers." Thompson was careful to point out that this process is more than just putting its licensed backup products online for all to use. "Our team is rearchitecting our product set so that it can provide true multitenant backup and recovery services, including the ability to account for services delivered," added Thompson.

Thompson also made an interesting correlation between the consumer security market and the enterprise security space. "We believe there is a growing connection between those markets," said Thompson. "Over time, enterprises that interact digitally with customers and employees will shift from depending upon the remote device for security to securing the remote device when it attaches to the enterprise. The knowledge that we have of the consumer security market gives Symantec and its partners an advantage in that converging space."

Parrish: We've Stopped The Bleeding
You didn't have to spend much time at this event to hear talk about the pain caused to partners during the Symantec merger with VERITAS. This topic came up in my conversation with Julie Parrish, VP of Symantec's global channel office. "During the Symantec/VERITAS merger, there was more pain than we would have liked for our partners and customers," Parrish told me. "We've stopped the bleeding by improving our combined company processes. We are continuing to improve processes such as licensing to make them easier for our partners." Parrish has always been very forthright with me about the problems this transition has caused and about the pain partners have felt. She said that recent feedback from partners has indicated that channel processes are improving, "Slowly but surely," she added.
Parrish said that many of the ideas for process improvement are coming directly from Symantec's partners. She also explained the "quote to cash" philosophy that is designed to make all of the steps involved in partner sales easier for partners. "Every time we look at changing a process, we ask what effect the change will have on our partners," explained Parrish.

Kendra: Partners Must Stay Focused
One of the messages delivered by Kendra was the company is embarking on a campaign to rebrand itself as a risk management infrastructure company. Symantec's focus is to stay anchored to its area of competency. According to Kendra, "We will continue to deliver software that runs above the OS and below the application layer. That's where we are going to stay. Will Symantec ever have a full stack of applications from the OS to the application layer? Not likely."

Thompson added that Symantec partners must also stay focused. "Pick your area of expertise, and stick to it," he said. "The notion of trying to get too broad too fast is not good for every partner. You must deliver a product and service that customers are willing to pay for first, then you can look at adjacent markets."

— Chris Loringer
Network Security and
Storage Technologies Editor