Dell Security partners look to make enterprise push
Partners expect vendor to see increasing success in mid-market and enterprise sectors
Dell Security is set to increase its presence in the enterprise sector, according to partners at Dell's EMEA PEAK 2016.
The vendor's SonicWall products are sold predominantly in the SMB sector, but Exertis director Jason Hill said that some of the products in the portfolio, particularly the identity products that came from the Quest acquisition, lean more towards large businesses and enterprises.
He now expects to work with Dell Security in moving the two ends of the business closer together to offer products across the SMB, mid-market and enterprise sectors.
"We've just got to look at how we cross-fertilise," he said at the event, which was held in Malta this week just as news broke that Dell is selling SonicWall and Quest for a rumoured $2bn (£1.3bn). "We take firewalls up a notch or two, and we've already got products in the [higher-end] portfolio, such as Safeguard, that fit into the SMB space.
"We've just got to make those products fit into the same sort of mould that SonicWall does today - so the same sort of discounts, partner programmes, and way to order."
Durgan Cooper, a director at reseller partner Cetsat, told CRN that, while Dell Security wants to bolster its presence in the enterprise market, it is more likely that its stronghold in the SMB sector will lead to an improved performance in the mid-market.
"From a partner perspective - moving from SMB, to mid-market, to enterprise - we are being dragged in that direction because that's where they want to go," he said.
"They are cognisant of the fact that they do a really good job down here [in the SMB sector] and [they're thinking] 'let's not lose ourselves too much to the enterprise', so they've got their own conundrum going on as to where they apply themselves.
"We've certainly as a partner seen a good increase of the mid-range products, so I think we'll see that very much growing rather than the enterprise, but I think as they start taking more market share in that mid-range, inevitably the enterprise will increase as well."
IDC analyst Dominic Trott said that Dell Security still has some work to do to address the disparity between the two ends of the business and to persuade partners that products they assume are not relevant to their customers are in fact a viable option.
"Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome will be sheer market perception," he said. "It could happen, but they may need to convince customers that they can take advantage of it, particularly with the identity where there's a tendency that it can be quite a big investment.
"I think maybe some development in terms of a lighter version - something that could be hosted or delivered as a white label by partners or something that Dell offers as a service - might be a way of moving into the smaller-sized organisation space."
Eamon Moore, director at E-MIT Solutions, has already sold some of the higher-end products to SMBs in this way.
"SonicWall traditionally is very much in the SMB market but we've had great success in allowing SMBs access to the NSA range through the IT-as-a-service model and firewall-as-a-service," he said.
"It is going to be an SMB play, but I'm delighted to see that more of the higher end of the range is available to the SMB market and that's certainly going to be a differentiator to us in the approach we take."