Microsoft warned Forefront axe could drive customers to rivals

Partners disappointed at discontinuation of five security products

Microsoft partners have warned that the discontinuation of some of its Forefront security products will drive customers towards rival vendors that specialise in security, such as McAfee and Symantec.

Last week the vendor axed its 2010 Exchange Server, SharePoint, Security for Office Communications Server, Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 and TMG Web Protection Services as part of its "effort to better align security and protection solutions with the workloads and applications they protect".

While some partners have said that sales of Forefront are so low that it will make little difference to their businesses, others say the move, which will see the products discontinued from 1 December, has led them to advise their customers to work with other vendors.

Alfie Boucherd, Microsoft business manager at security reseller Caretower, said: "We are recommending [customers] to move onto other vendors. If they have lost Forefront, then they should look at security-focused vendors such as McAfee, Symantec and Sophos because [those products] are their bread and butter.

"Microsoft likes to put its fingers in all kinds of pies, and this shows that when things do not work [out], they just move on. This is a lesson to customers that they should look at vendors with a core focus."

The vendor's Server and Cloud Platform team announced the move on its blog, where it detailed the full details of the implications for partners, where some took to the comment section to voice their concerns.

One commenter posted: "It is... very disappointing to hear that you will be discontinuing Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010. It breaks my heart."

Other users questioned what would replace the Forefront products, while others described the move as "bad news", "a huge loss" and "poor direction".

The vendor said malware protection will be added to the Exchange Server 2013 in response to customer demand, while SharePoint and Lync Servers "will continue to offer the built-in security capabilities that many customers use to protect shared documents".

Boucherd added that it seems Microsoft is more concerned with how well products sell than end users' needs.

"Microsoft has cut the heart out of Forefront. Customers loved Forefront protection; both online and on-premise. They are great products... but this is a very ‘Microsoft' thing to do," he said.

Ian Moyse, sales director at cloud CRM provider Workbooks, added that cloud security changes have become more common.

"There have been a number of changes recently across the cloud security sector from Google/Postini, Webroot and now Microsoft which are affecting the channel," he said.

"In the cloud space you can make changes to licensing, billing and function far quicker than you ever could in the software world and, unfortunately, many vendors seem to be forgetting the impact this has on supply channels."

Microsoft was unavailable to comment at the time of publication.