Blue Coat: We overdid it on direct touch

Vendor embraces the channel and refocuses on core security business

Blue Coat admits its UK team had become overrun by direct-touch sales staff and has moved to redress the balance in favour of the channel.

Under the tutelage of new private equity owner Thoma Bravo, the California-based firm has also diluted its emphasis on WAN optimisation and is seeking to reposition itself as primarily a security company once again.

Blue Coat's increasing lack of channel focus – along with its poor run of results – had begun to infuriate partners before the firm changed management and ownership last year.

Senior UK sales director Pat Dunne conceded the vendor had got the balance wrong. As a result, the vendor is in the process of boosting its UK channel headcount from one and a half to four and a half. In contrast, its UK direct-touch headcount has fallen from 10 to six since last year, said Dunne.

"Because we focus on very large customers, they expect to have some touch from the manufacturer so it is not the wrong thing to do. We just went a little too far," he said.

Dunne said Blue Coat's lack of channel resource had been a gift for rivals, including his ex-employers at Websense.

"If you try to drive it all yourself, you can get a bit isolated," he said. "One of the things that made me smile at Websense was that there was not enough channel resource at Blue Coat so it is important we resolved that."

Dunne indicated that Blue Coat was back in growth mode following a string of poor results under the previous management, while the firm was still listed on the stock market.

"It's a bit of a cyclical business as it is mainly a hardware business and this year we are having a refresh," he said. "There are lots of opportunities for partners to help us refresh those customers, so we are having a bit of a bumper year this year. We are also putting a lot of investment into innovating for the future."

Meanwhile, the decision to refocus on security will come as a relief to some partners, Dunne predicted.

"The majority of our business is still security and we are the market leader in web security gateways," he explained. "We had a couple of years where you heard us talking a lot about WAN optimisation – and that is still a focus – but customers, and certainly our competition, looked at our marketing and assumed that was all we were doing.

"We are making a clear statement that we are also a security company."