Fortinet channel upbeat on Meru buyout
Security vendor's partners have expressed their excitement over the acquisition
A number of Fortinet's partners have shared with CRN their thoughts on the $44m takeover of wireless vendor Meru, and they all seem in rather high spirits.
Dave Smith, internal account manager at partner Blue Chip reckons it will encourage consumers to move away from other companies that they feel comfortable with.
He commented: "I think people will now be more confident in Fortiwifi. A lot of people like the Fortigate product, but wouldn't necessarily have the Fortiwifi because it's not a name they've heard of.
"Consumers would be like ‘I've got Cisco (or Ruckus) and it's really good, do I really want to move to this?' and they actually wouldn't before."
Barrie Desmond, chief operating officer of Exclusive Networks, pointed out that resellers may benefit from being able to sell products with a built-in WiFi controller.
Desmond said: "In terms of the approach from a reseller's point of view, it is easier to sell an existing and known brand into an existing customer base; this is hands down the easiest opportunity.
Fortinet also gains access to Meru's team of engineers, which opens the door for the security vendor to tap into other markets, said the Exclusive Networks man.
Desmond added: "They also now have the access to critical cloud-based WiFi delivery and management, which gives them the opportunity to get into managed services."
Blue Chip's Smith claimed that, due to the way that Meru's tech is designed, it should pair well with Fortinet's access point products, which will benefit from a single-channel solution, in turn making it an easier sell.
"It's really going to help develop the AP (access point) side," he said. "FortiAP is something that we don't do a lot of because the quality isn't great. But with the new Meru tech, because of the way it is designed, it should work really well. What people like about Meru is that it is single channelled, so I think it'll work really well as a combination.
"From a sales point of view, you can be confident in selling the WiFi assets when they get it all working properly because you know Fortinet and Meru are going to work so well together."