Alternatives: Security

A few years ago, Symantec might have been viewed as the security kingpin. But the escalating importance of data privacy and protection, and the ensuing entry into the security arena by nontraditional vendors, have cracked this market wide open.

Of the solution providers that participated in the VARBusiness Alternatives Survey, about 32 percent named Cisco Systems as the market leader. Almost 21 percent named Symantec.

True, VARs mentioned Symantec when asked about alternative players, too, but they also brought up SonicWall, Juniper Networks and WatchGuard.

The results should come as no surprise. In a research report released in December, Gartner placed Juniper in its leadership quadrant because of the vendor's SSL VPN and intrusion-prevention systems (IPSes). According to other industry sources, McAfee, Trend Micro, Computer Associates and Check Point have unveiled technologies that also put them at the top of the heap.

Yet it's SonicWall that has been making the most noise lately. The security solution and services company has been garnering technical and channel-related awards in the past year, including two from VARBusiness.

After suffering big financial losses a few years ago, the company turned things around, largely by reinventing itself around the channel. "One of the things we did when I came onboard was realize we had a bifurcated selling approach," says SonicWall CEO Matt Medeiros. "We decided we were going to live by the channel, and I believe that has given us an advantage in time-to-volume and time-to-market."

Most security VARs will keep gravitating toward best-of-breed security solutions until better, truly integrated ones arrive.

"We use Juniper's SSL VPN product because [it] doesn't require the integration Cisco's does," says Steve Fuller, president and CTO of Networks Group, a systems integrator in Brighton, Mich. "I don't know if it's the answer, but it's an answer."