Network Associates Lays Out Comprehensive Product Strategy

In a tent set up on at the Alameda, Calif., training facility of the Oakland Raiders football team, Network Associates, Inc. (NAI) chairman and CEO George Samenuk said the company is moving away from the notion of intrusion detection to that of intrusion prevention. To deliver on that concept, NAI will integrate its anti-virus, intrusion prevention, policy-and process-based firewall technology, and security deployment and management software within one product.

The first stage of that integration, which adds firewall capabilities to the company's McAfee Anti-Virus and McAfee Entercept intrusion prevention software, will be available by the first half of next year. By year-end 2004, NAI will combine functions from all of its best-of-breed software into a single, integrated product for the host. Software for the network will remain separate, best-of-breed products. Prices were not announced.

Donna Troy, NAI's executive vice president of Worldwide Channels, told CRN that the company's new product strategy is prompting her to build a new tiered program, based on solution providers' skills and certifications, which she expects to announce in either January or February of next year. "We will offer training so partners can move up the food chain. We will incent with leads and market development funding, depending on their level, and we will offer pricing that's based on their tier," said Troy.

Troy also said she's "looking for a few good men" who can sell NAI's products as part of a larger security solution. "We don't need to increase the number of partners as much as change the mix beyond those who sell anti-virus," said Troy. "We want people who can handle the whole end-to-end solution set."

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