Handbags at dawn for Websense and Blue Coat
Vendors' relationship turns frosty in spat over support for future versions of the ProxySG appliance
Websense and Blue Coat have engaged in a war of words as the two vendors clash over support issues for the next version of the ProxySG security appliance.
In a statement on its website and sent out to partners as a 'Partner Alert', Websense said: “Recently, Blue Coat announced the end of support for Websense in the next version of ProxySG (V6.3) and noted that affected customers using Websense need to migrate to Blue Coat WebFilter.
“The announcement incorrectly states that Websense was not providing updates and support, despite recently working together to solve a customer issue… the ‘net-net’ is that Blue Coat, at its sole discretion, decided to end support for Websense, thus removing the option for customers to protect their networks with Websense web filtering.”
It continues: “Over the years, Blue Coat has been challenged to develop product solutions on two fronts, one being web security and the other WAN optimisation. Resources at Blue Coat are limited, and trade-offs have to be considered: Blue Coat had seven product releases over the past five years, and they were focused on WAN optimisation, not security.”
Hitting back, Nigel Hawthorn, EMEA vice president of marketing at Blue Coat, said relations between the vendors had become increasingly strained.
“We have been moving in this direction for a while. Blue Coat and Websense have been technology partners for a decade now, but we introduced our own web-filtering system seven years ago, and joint revenue through partners has been reducing for some time,” he said.
“Both companies have refreshed their products over time, but we asked Websense to use what we considered to be the best integration [strategy] for ProxySG and they essentially refused to do so. And new versions [of ProxySG] will not be supporting Websense any longer,” he said. “Existing customers can use Websense on today’s SG, but over time they will find that Websense will bring out a new category that they cannot use, or it will mean they cannot move to a later version of SG either."
He said Blue Coat felt “backed into a corner” by Websense’s actions, but urged resellers to help their customers choose the “best way forward”.
“We are advising channel partners to help their customers choose the best way forward and asking them ultimately if it will be Blue Coat or Websense,” he said. “There is no massive panic – the support will probably be there for a minimum of five years but, at some point, everyone comes up for renewal and needs advice on what do to. But I think the number one response for all vendors is to make sure everybody understands what is going on.”
Etienne Greeff, director of Blue Coat and Websense partner SecureData, said the move had come as no surprise. “Websense and Blue Coat have had a fractious relationship for the past six years – previously in EMEA the vice presidents used to get along very well personally but, with the changing of the guard at both vendors, they are both looking at it from a business point of view.
"It makes very little sense to keep things this way – Blue Coat is losing quite a bit of service revenue and, from a Websense point of view, it gives all its IP revenue away,” he said. “Both are wanting what each other has and this does not come as much of a shock to anybody.”
Greeff said Blue Coat is in an interesting position and could risk alienating a lot of enterprise customers as a result.
“Blue Coat has seen a lot of changes and a lot of partners are not entirely sure where they are going or of their strategy. From a management point of view, the most visible thing is the reporting mechanism on what the threats are and what is going wrong, and that has always come from the Websense side,” he said.
“By doing this, Blue Coat could find customers re-evaluating their platforms at a time when Cisco is making a lot of noise with IronPort. As a reseller, we need to look after our customers’ best interests. We are keen to keep up our relations with both sides, but this situation does ultimately make it more difficult for customers.”