Palo Alto exposes firewall rivals

Raistrick: We have five UK wins to publicly announce

Firewall vendor Palo Alto has armed its resellers with evidence that its rivals are failing to keep pace with the evolving application landscape.

The California-based firm has claimed its application-aware technology represents the first innovation in the firewall market since the 1990s, and has recruited eight resellers since its UK launch in December.

It will unveil a formal two-tier channel programme in late summer to open up its technology to more resellers. Existing partners such as Integralis, GSS and Synetix will be allocated to the higher tier.

Palo Alto’s third Application Usage and Risk report -­ to be released at next week’s Infosec show ­- found that 57 per cent of applications could evade end users’ existing firewalls.

Lee Klarich, vice president of product management at Palo Alto, said: “For the first time, we are highlighting the ineffectiveness of existing security solutions. All partners can use this as part of their sales effort to help educate customers.”

Palo Alto has also recruited its first UK country manager. Alex Raistrick, who joins from Consentry Networks, claimed the traditional firewall market was dead.

“We are only in April and have five [UK] wins we are about to publicly announce,” he said. “The channel finds our story easy to articulate.”

Rick Gray, managing director of Synex, said: "The last time I saw a product like this was Neoteris, which was bought by NetScreen. This technology is unbelievable; I can ring people and get seven out of 10 interested in it and that is saying something."

Graham Jones, UK managing director of Integralis, said: “Palo Alto has created a technology splash but it is not going to knock the existing guys off their pedestal just yet. If the economy was a bit stronger and people were not holding on to their assets, it would move a bit quicker.”