Channel Best Sellers: Security
Courtesy of CRN
MARCH 9, 2007 | WatchGuard spent most of 2006 mired in uncertainty as rumors swirled it was shopping itself to private ownership. In July, rumor turned to reality as the vendor was acquired by private equity fund Francisco Partners.
But despite WatchGuard’s struggles, the vendor was still able to maintain healthy sales of its VPN products through major distributors, as evidenced by data from The NPD Group/Distributor Track. The data shows WatchGuard claimed 55.1 percent of the U.S. dollar volume share in VPN product sales, nearly 25 percentage points higher than Check Point Software Technologies, which placed second with 30.6 percent.
The NPD data includes POS information from certain key distributors, including members of the Global Technology Distribution Council. Rounding out the top four best-sellers of VPNs were SonicWall, with 2006 share of 10.4 percent, and Netgear, with 3.9 percent.
Simplicity and ease of use have helped WatchGuard claim a solid niche in the small- and midsize-business market, according to solution providers.
WatchGuard “provides an immense amount of value with low total cost of ownership,” said Carl Mazzanti, CEO of eMazzanti Technologies, Hoboken, N.J.
The user interface for Watchguard’s VPN products is particularly helpful for companies that have IT staff with limited experience, he said. “They’ve spent a great deal of time working on the user interface, so that on a non-typical core competency for an edge device, the average IT administrator can pick up, manage, configure, implement and maintain a Watchguard VPN,” Mazzanti said.
SonicWall, another vendor that has built a channel around SMB-friendly products, was the top-growth best-seller in the VPN category, posting a U.S. dollar volume share increase of 0.5 percentage points. SonicWall’s success can be traced to enhancements to the VPN feature set, with one of the most popular being NetExtender, a downloadable thin client that gives users access to servers and applications on the corporate network, said Deepak Thadani, president of SysIntegrators, a solution provider in Woodside, N.Y. “SonicWall’s VPN is inexpensive, easy to use, and it works. It’s that simple,” Thadani said.
— Kevin McLaughlin, Barbara Darrow, Paula Rooney, CRN
Carl Mazzanti is Co-Founder and President of eMazzanti Technologies, Microsoft’s four time Partner of the Year and one of the premier IT consulting services for businesses throughout the New York metropolitan area and internationally. Carl and his company manage over 400 active accounts ranging from professional services firms to high-end global retailers.
eMazzanti is all about delivering powerful, efficient outsourced IT services, such as computer network management and troubleshooting, managed print, PCI DSS compliance, green computing, mobile workforce technology, information security, cloud computing, and business continuity and disaster recovery.
Carl Mazzanti is also a frequent business conference speaker and technology talk show guest and contributor at Microsoft-focused events, including frequent prominent roles at the Microsoft Inspire (Worldwide Partner Conference / WPC).
Carl, a serial Entrepreneur, gives back to the community through Entrepreneur teaching engagements at Georgetown University, the company’s ocean wildlife conservation effort, the Blue Project, and Tree Mazzanti.
