McAfee To Sell Risk Management Products Through Distribution

Dave Roberts, senior vice president of channels for North America at McAfee, Santa Clara, Calif., said that the Foundstone products complement McAfee's intrusion-prevention system (IPS) technology, which is designed to identify security risks and address them before they are exploited.

"This is really an extension of our IPS strategy," Roberts said, noting that McAfee already sells its intrusion-prevention products through the same two distributors. "We are very excited to bring these capabilities to solution providers through [the distribution] channel."

The new products being opened up to distribution include the Foundstone FS1000 appliance, which sits in-line with a network firewall, and Foundstone Enterprise, a software version of the same technology. Both products enable organizations and government agencies to mitigate risk by balancing asset value and vulnerability severity.

Since the acquisition, multiple research organizations have released data showing that IPS sales are on the rise. Research firm In-Stat/MDR in a recent report predicted that the market is poised to reach $1.4 billion by 2008, up from $541 million in 2003.

Steve Palange, president of TLIC Worldwide, Wakefield, R.I., said he plans to jump at the chance to sell the new vulnerability assessment and risk management products. "We have been very successful selling a variety of software-based [risk management] solutions, but none of them came as appliance solutions," Palange said. "I won't miss [out] on an opportunity like this one."