Winner: RSA
RSA took the honors in the Network Security Software category, leveraging high marks in reliability, features/functionality and innovation to finish with an overall ARC score of 90.9. The vendor swept every criterion in every subcategory; its 102.9 score in product quality and reliability was the ninth highest in that criterion in the entire survey.
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"We get great feedback from the partners on our technology," said Billy Taylor, RSA's vice president of global alliances and channels. "And then when you look at the programmatic aspects, we've also upgraded profitability, deal registration, ease of doing business, etc. We've got a very good track record of doing things that our partners need, so they are very favorable toward us."
Taylor says that RSA has gone a long way toward driving the integration of disparate security technologies into unified solutions. Some of those were developed organically, while others were developed through the acquisition of companies such as NetWitness, which brought network monitoring capabilities into the fold, and also Archer, which supplied governance, risk and compliance (GRC) technologies.
"We've seen strong triple-digit growth in both of those product lines," added Taylor. "And you can expect us to continue building our security portfolio. When you are owned by a company with $7 billion in cash and [EMC CEO] Joe Tucci is saying that he wants to spend $5 billion on security, you can't be in a better place."
Taylor's enthusiasm is echoed by Dan Wilson, senior vice president of partner alliances at Accuvant, a Denver-based channel partner. "They've done some excellent work in innovating and acquiring technologies," he said. "RSA does a good job of training their channel and making us capable of selling their products into a variety of customers and vertical markets."
Product innovation, support and partnership are key components to any channel sale," said Taylor. "I think we won this award because we put all three of those things together. That's the key."
