Channel Programs, Security

McAfee expands Security Innovation Alliance program

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Selling broader solutions and going end-to-end was a big topic at McAfee’s Focus 10 security conference in Las Vegas this week. But the company’s vision is that of “security connected,” and those connections often include those outside the vendor’s own four walls.

Like many security vendors, the company maintains a network of complementary offerings from third parties, and under the banner of the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance (SIA) partner program, it brings joint solutions to market through the company’s partners.

At Focus 10, the company introduced 11 new members of the SIA, announced that six partners have achieved “McAfee Compatible” status in the program, and added two new members to its SIA Sales Teaming Programming.

Here’s a look at who’s in, who’s moving on up, and what this all means to the company’s channel partners.

(Disclosure: ChannelBuzz.ca attended McAfee Focus 10 as a guest of McAfee Canada.)

  • New to the program are (in alphabetical order): Assured Information Security, Athena, Ceedo, Chicony, DG Technology Consulting, Lieberman Software, NetIQ, SandForce, SEP Software, Sipera Systems, and Tiversa.
  • Moving up to Technology Partner status are: Allen Corporation of America , BDNA, Ciphent, KeyTronic, PassLogix and Sentrigo.
  • And finally, joining the Sales Teaming Program are the aforementioned BDNA, and Montreal-based MXI Security, where former McAfee Canada chief Jack Sebbag serves as veep of North American sales and marketing.)

An impressive laundry list to be sure. But you may well be asking “What does any of that mean to me?” Quite a bit, according to Ed Barry, senior director for the SIA at McAfee.

“It’s an incredible program, and we aren’t leveraging it as much as we should,” Barry told partners. “We have over 100 partners with 60 solutions that you can sell today in 10 markets.”

As Barry put it, when faced with customers looking for solutions not in a partner’s immediate tool bag, VARs face three choices: Walk away, try to switch the budget to something they do offer, or “work with an SIA partner to deliver the solution.”

Clearly, Barry and McAfee’s SIA partners are betting solution providers won’t find those first two options palatable.

Big opportunities, Barry said, are easily accessible through SIA include database security, wireless security, data forensics and log management. “Your customers are buying this from someone today,” Barry said. “We’re trying to remove the barriers to adoption.”

Barry’s call to action to partners: Get educated on who’s in the SIA and what solutions they bring to market; and get McAfee’s account managers in to make a connection to start building new types of solutions.

“These guys are dying to work with people who want to solve complex customer problems,” Barry said. “There’s a real opportunity for a land grab when it comes to share if we do it together.”