Cyberbit, a subsidiary of Israeli defense electronics giant Elbit Systems, sells entirely through channel partners, and has announced a North American channel program for them.
Stephen Thomas, Cyberbit’s Vice President of Sales
Austin TX-based Cyberbit has announced the launch of a channel program for its North American partners, who are its entire route to market.
Cyberbit’s North American operations came into being in April 2016, but it has a presence on three continents, more than 500 employees, and is a spin-off with mature technologies, not a startup.
“Cyberbit is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest defense company,” said Stephen Thomas, Cyberbit’s Vice President of Sales. “Elbit decided to spin the security elements out into a separate company.”
Thomas had been Symantec’s Americas channel sales leader. However, when Cyberbit’s North American operation was stood up, he left Symantec and immediately joined Cyberbit. He stressed that while the company is relatively new, its technologies are not.
“We have four platforms, and all have been in production for 2-4 years, so its not like we are a startup bringing out a new technology that we hope partners will help us get right,” he said. Cyberbit SOC 3D is an intelligence-driven security orchestration solution that sits on top of a SIEM and complements it, to accelerate decision making, and manage incident response. Cyberbit’s Cyber Range provides cyber security training facilities to improve security team performance, by providing a hyper-realistic virtual training environment, advanced training tools and simulated attack scenarios. They also have Cyberbit Endpoint Detection and Response and SCADAShield deep packet inspection solutions.
“We have hefty products to sell to organizations with a security operations centre (SOC), particularly large utilities and other large users, so the need for partners is obvious from my perspective,” Thomas said. “We have nowhere close to the scale and reach necessary to touch the entire market by ourselves. We also have a huge need for partners who can go further with our technology and who can coach customers on what we have that is needed. At RSA last year, there were so many companies, people wouldn’t even know what to look at.”
The target market is enterprises, particularly large ones, and government.
“If you don’t have a SOC, you probably aren’t a good fit for our platforms,” Thomas stated.
Right now the number of partners is in the mid-teens.
“At Symantec, less than 50 partners made up my strategic focus as a whole in North America,” Thomas said. “I’m looking to double or triple our present number, with highly competent targeted partners, who are well distributed geographically, and not piled on in one city. I’m looking to grow our base among larger regional partners like Prevalent in the north-east [New Jersey], where we can walk in the door and build a relationship with them.”
Cyberbit is also looking to add Canadian-based partners.
“We have partners who sell into Canada, but I am looking for some strong ones who are actually based IN Canada,” Thomas indicated. “The Canadian market is best served by Canadian partners who are home-grown.”
The program itself is a relatively simple one, motivated by the requirement to get a structure in place at this point in time.
“We needed to get something on the table,” Thomas said. “We needed a platform to operate from so that we could build some other programs on top of it. It’s not a complex program. It’s basically about a resale agreement, which is simple, deal registration, and a portal where partners can register transactions. It’s single tier, and there are no accreditations necessary to come in. There is no distribution element because we are too small, and don’t yet have scale from a transactions perspective.”
The ‘other programs’ Thomas referred to will start with managed security services, followed by a First Call Support program.
“We don’t have a formal MSSP program although we have a couple of MSSPs as partners. We want to be able to deliver that capacity for them. We see MSSPs as giving us the ability to go downmarket from the enterprise.”
