SonicWall has stepped up its assault on the SME space by slashing the prices of its TZ Series and related network security products.

Andy Zollo, regional director for northern Europe at SonicWall, said the global cuts aim to make the progression through the vendor’s low-end product set more obvious.

As an example, Zollo said the price gap between a TZ 180 bare appliance and a Totalsecure TZ 180 with full unified threat management services has dropped from $690 (£340) to $290.

“It is now a small increment to go from one to the other, so we expect to see more people going for bigger and more secure products,” he explained.

“The low end is a key weapon to enable us to take market share from our competition as we continue our rapid growth as a company. At the low end we are looking mainly at WatchGuard, Fortinet and Cisco.”

Zollo claimed that SonicWall was the first firewall vendor to radically drop its prices last January. He stressed that the latest cuts ­ which kicked in on 1 February ­ are more about fine tuning.

Duncan Hume, security director at SonicWall distributor Bell Micro, said: “At the low end of the SME,
anything that makes product more accessible to a wider market should be encouraged.”