Sophos Exec: Here’s How MSPs Can Drive Revenue With Our Products

Scott Barlow, vice president of global MSP and cloud alliances at Sophos, speaks about the tools and services Sophos offers and how MSPs can generate revenue by becoming a partner.

Sophos’ security offerings for MSPs provide centralized management and synchronized security features that can also help MSPs drive revenue, said Scott Barlow, vice president of global MSP and cloud alliances.

The company’s products and services, including next-generation endpoint security, managed detection and response, incident response, threat intelligence and cloud security, are key to helping partners make their customers more secure, he told an audience at XChange 2024, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company and being held in Orlando, Fla., this week.

Barlow was joined on stage by Reagan Roney, chief experience officer of Sterling, Va.-based MSP Solvere One.

[Related: Sophos Exec: MSPs Should Use AI To ‘Streamline Operations’]

Sophos has a centralized dashboard where MSPs can log in, add and manage customers, and deploy products and services to users, according to Barlow.

Sophos’ products are also integrated with products from vendors including Microsoft, CrowdStrike, Fortinet, Cisco Systems, Darktrace, Proofpoint and Amazon Web Services, to name a few.

In addition, the vendor offers a breach protection warranty that covers up to $1 million in response expenses. The warranty includes comprehensive coverage on all endpoints and servers, incident response and is underwritten by Sophos. It’s included in Sophos MDR Complete and is automatically built in with MSP flex and term licenses.

Barlow said partners can generate revenue by selling and wrapping services around Sophos’ products, acting as a virtual CISO and expanding to the cloud as public cloud migrations and security are “ripe for MSPs.”

“We have cloud security posture management, and then cloud workload protection,” he said. “So basically server protection, firewall from the cloud, email security and user training as well.”

Solvere One’s Roney said Sophos’ products can help MSPs meet their customers’ needs.

“There are full and robust products that will not only help you accomplish what you need to do with your clients but actually help you sleep at night,” Roney said.

The best part about Sophos’ products, Barlow said, is that all of them were developed together and talk to one another.

“If the endpoint is in trouble, it can actually isolate the endpoint to prevent any lateral propagation across the network,” he said. “We call that ‘synchronized security’ or ‘security heartbeat.’”

Dan Tomaszewski, president of Jenison, Mich.-based MSP Green Light Business Technology, said he thought the breach protection warranty that Barlow talked about is intriguing.

“When you think of Sophos you think of, obviously, security but more specifically the firewall aspects,” he told CRN. “I think the intriguing part is that if you have these particular security products in your stack then those insurance companies find great value in that. That’s why they’re giving a discount on some specific pricing models.”

MSPs, and their customers, that use Sophos MDR are eligible for discounted insurance rates from partnerships that Sophos has developed with Cowbell, Cysurance and Measured.