SailPoint promises partners 'nirvana' on channel push

Security vendor rubbishes rivals' approach to building identity and access management kit

Security vendor SailPoint has rubbished its rivals' approach to identity and access management (IAM) tech as it overhauls its European channel and promises its partners "nirvana".

The IAM vendor claims that competitors' technology lags behind its own because they tend to acquire in the space, instead of build it from scratch, as SailPoint does.

Sailpoint helps businesses keep data stored on-site and in the cloud safe, while allowing employees to access it securely from any device and location.

The company's new vice president of worldwide alliances and channels, Harry Gould – who joined last week from HP Software, where he held the same position – said Sailpoint's approach to IAM is unique.

He said Oracle, EMC, IBM and Dell tend to trail SailPoint in terms of providing an IAM solution, as they may not have the resources to support these products.

"We are the only company that has built a very scalable product from the ground up, whereas these other companies have typically acquired these technologies," he said. "If you acquire technologies, the core people behind the product eventually leave and the tech eventually lags behind.

"We have a very high replacement rate against many of our competitors where they have tried to implement a particular technology and have become frustrated because resources are required or it is difficult to use. We see a lot of companies that have bought those products, that are now looking at SailPoint."

The Austin, Texas-based vendor has about 150 partners worldwide, including the 60 partners in the UK. Gould said upping this number is a priority.

He added that the expansion of the partner ecosystem in Europe includes hiring a number of partner managers in DACH, Benelux and the Nordics regions, and building on its services organisation to help its channel sell Sailpoint products.

According the Gould, resellers will get access to a package of services including programme management, quality assurance and implementation assistance.

Gould continued: "From a partner perspective this is what I would call nirvana – we have the best product, we all know how hot security is – and identity is the hottest part of security.

"We have done a very good job so far building a partner ecosystem and we really believe the future is incredibly bright, and we will become the dominant player in this space as time goes on."