Competitors Seeing Wins From Proofpoint As MX Logic End Of Life Deadline Approaches
As the deadline for the end of life of MX Logic approaches, competitors say they are moving into Proofpoint’s territory and stealing hundreds or even thousands of the company’s potential new customers from the event.
Intel Security announced last year the end of life of the MX Logic email security line. The product officially hit end of life for sale on January 11, 2016, with renewals available through January 11, 2017.
At the time, Intel Security named Proofpoint as the exclusive supposed alternative for MX Logic, saying the email security vendor is a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader and ’has products to match our email security portfolio…and has products that extend to adjacent messaging areas which Intel Security does not have.’
However, competitors said they are successfully winning hundreds, even thousands, of customers from Proofpoint.
’A lot of customers are looking for options. A lot of partner are looking for a new partner,’ Sean Broderick, director of North American channels at Mimecast, said. ’A lot of those partners are coming over to us.’
Broderick said Mimecast added more than 2,000 total new customers in the last quarter, estimating that at least half of that number came from MX Logic migrations. He said customers are drawn to Mimecast’s easy migration process, archiving options and security add-ons like targeted threat protection.
Ryan Walsh, senior vice president of partner solutions at Pax8, said he is seeing the same trend, saying the Lone Tree, Co.-based cloud distributor has helped migrate dozens of MX Logic partners away from Proofpoint. He said many of the partners he talked to are ’spooked’ by the sudden end of life announcement and are looking to move to a vendor with a strong channel background, easy migration process and comparable technology.
Walsh said competition is fierce among vendors to land former MX Logic partners, and Pax8 has been ’pretty aggressive in reaching out to partners.’
’It’s been very competitive since that news came out of McAfee. Now, anyone living in that space in the feeding frenzy. I think the channel partners are having to figure it out. There are a lot of claims being thrown out there and who can they trust?’ Walsh said.
Sophos said in an email that it is also seeing the same trend of wins. Symantec declined to comment.
At the time, Proofpoint executives said the deal was a ’multi-million-dollar opportunity’ for the company. CEO Gary Steele said on the company’s ’pipeline of opportunities continues to grow’ from the relationship, after saying the previous quarter that it ’has yet to contribute materially to our financial results above our historical baseline level of activity.’ Steele said the relationship, in particularly, is seeing success migrating smaller McAfee customers and driving additional recurring subscription services.
Dee Dee Phelps Acquista, vice president of worldwide channels at Proofpoint, said the company has added ’lots of new partners’ through the end of life migration agreement with MX Logic, as well as hired a few employees that used to work for the division. She said she could not comment on exactly how much business or partners the company has won from the migrations.
’I would say we are doing well and I think we are pleasantly surprised by the growth were seeing there,’ Phelps Acquista said.
Walsh said Pax8 is looking to differentiate itself by being a ’guiding partner’ and ’cloud wingman’ through the transition. He said many partners have turned to Pax8 because of the company’s background with MX Logic – Walsh himself was vice president of product management at MX Logic prior to its acquisition by McAfee in 2009 and helped develop the group’s channel strategy.
’In the case of migrating away from an end of life product, this is a great example of where we believe we can differentiate ourselves and show the channel what we can do for them…They didn’t want this to happen, they don’t want their customers to be disrupted and they need someone to guide them through these waters,’ Walsh said. ’This is a good opportunity to perform and show channel partners what you can do.’
CRN spoke to many partners of MX Logic that said they are evaluating alternatives when migrating their customers. Michael Goldstein, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based LAN Infotech, said he has migrated almost all of his customers to Mimecast, a vendor he was already a partner with.
’I liked what Proofpoint had to offer, but it was not enough for me to go out here and take on another product,’ Goldstein said. Goldstein said he has already migrated some of his clients, but still has some to go as the deadline approaches.
Another partner, who did not want to be named, said he started moved clients to Proofpoint, but has since migrated them to alternatives since he found the vendor is ’not going a good job there.’
’We are moving people off of MX Logic to alternatives,’ the executive said.
Neill Reidy, manager of cloud computing at Wayne, Pa.-based Evolve IP, said in an email that his company has performed hundreds of migrations off of MX Logic to Mimecast. He said the process is ’so far so good’ with those clients, who he said are particularly drawn to Mimecast’s archival capabilities.
’This market is thinning out and only the really efficient companies are left,’ Reidy said. ’Mimecast is one of them…It's also not about just email security anymore. Archival is huge and nobody feels like contracting yet another vendor to do that piece. So, Mimecast scores again. In fact, nobody else that I looked at could offer everything,’ Reidy said.
However, the opportunity for migrations is still far from over, Pax8’s Walsh said. While some customers chose to migrate right away, Walsh said he sees a significant runway of customers who have yet to move off of the solution. Walsh said migrations were ’slower than we thought’ in past months, but now sees more of a ’sense of urgency’ going into the final months of the year.
’If partners haven’t moved their customers, I think they will be more motivated to move because they really won’t have an option to stay… Now it’s coming and now it’s here,’ Walsh said.