Firewall vendor raises channel's hackles

Security Designers claims to have invented the next-generation firewall for the security market, but UK distributors have hit out at the vendor's channel strategy.

Security Designers claims to have invented the next-generation firewall for the security market, but UK distributors have hit out at the vendor's channel strategy.

The channel-oriented company grew out of direct vendor Network Designers, which developed connectivity software such as communications gateways.

Declan Grogan, sales and marketing director at Security Designers, said: "The need for greater IP security was developing. There are already perimeter and personal firewalls, but they don't cover the greatest threat to security: the internal threat."

"So we developed a distributed firewall that sits on any device and can be managed centrally. To do that we have to use the channel. That's why we created Security Designers," he added.

The Oxford-based company is already selling in the US and South Africa through distributors. Its UK channel strategy, however, has come under attack. "We decided to get a critical [UK] market share by dealing direct with resellers. Once we've done that we'll start talking to distributors," said Grogan.

But distributor Allasso said the strategy was naive. "Unless you're the size of Computer Associates you can't make the market," said sales director Bernie Dodwell. "They're inching into a market dominated by Checkpoint and Cisco. [The software] had better be good."

David Ellis, head of security at distributor Unipalm, said: "Good luck to them. They're going to need it."

First published in Computer Reseller News