Judd joins Lastline as he calls time on distie venture

Heatherside to be dissolved as Paul Judd accepts role at one of its former vendor partners

Paul Judd has joined anti-malware vendor Lastline after calling time on his security distribution venture, Heatherside.

Judd (pictured) has been appointed regional director for UK and Ireland at the advanced persistent threat mitigation specialist, which was one of two vendors Heatherside carried, alongside Aspida Networks.

Judd said he had opted to wind down the business – which he launched in 2012 with the aim of filling the void left by the sale of specialist security VADs such as VADition – after being "overcome by circumstances".

"I looked at how much effort I was putting into Heatherside and how much it was making and compared that with the opportunity I was given here," he said. "Lastline is a very well-funded start-up with very good technology."

After officially leaving Heatherside in January, Judd spent the intervening five months working for another vendor, Aerohive Networks. Heatherside is no longer trading and will probably now be dissolved, although Judd stressed all creditors had been paid off.

Lastline is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as anti-malware disrupter FireEye but Judd said its wares work out considerably cheaper because of the lower CapEx required, with the price rising as users are added.

This makes Lastline, which now works through Cloud Distribution as its sole UK distributor, particularly attractive to managed security service providers, Judd added.

"If you're an MSSP selling FireEye, you've got a big fixed cost before you've even got any customers but with Lastline you don't have that," he said, adding that the technology is aimed at any firm that has valuable intellectual property in an electronic format.

Judd's appointment will see him hook up once again with his former Fortinet colleague Luca Simonelli, who runs Lastline's EMEA business.

The US-based vendor now has 10 UK staff, including eight who work in development roles in Shoreditch.