Which security vendors have been ranked as channel champions?
Canalys unveils heroes and villains in this year's Cybersecurity Leadership Matrix
Sophos, ESET, Fortinet, Palo Alto and Cisco have all been ranked as the highest-scoring security vendors in a channel survey conducted by Canalys.
The Canalys Cybersecurity Leadership Matrix 2019 is based on partner feedback, as well as the analyst's own quarterly shipment estimates and insight to determine a vendor's position in the competitive cybersecurity landscape.
The Matrix is split into four quadrants: "Champions", "Stragglers", "Contenders" and "Growers" and the 15 vendors are assessed on their channel performance in the preceding 12 months.
"Champions have the highest scores in the Canalys Vendor Benchmark and show some common characteristics," said Alex Smith, senior director of channels at Canalys.
"These include positive partner sentiment, ongoing improvements in channel processes to drive simplicity and ease of doing business, a willingness to boost growth opportunities for partners, and a demonstrable commitment to growing the share of revenue generated through the channel."
F5 Networks, McAfee and Symantec were all labelled as channel Stragglers. These are vendors that have seen channel sentiment or performance deteriorate or stagnate.
"In a highly competitive cybersecurity market, both McAfee and Symantec will need to vigorously defend their positions in the channel to protect against networking vendors moving into the end-point sphere, as well as a wave of emerging cybersecurity vendors," the analyst stated.
Barracuda, Check Point and IBM have all been named as Contenders, which are vendors that are still rated highly by partners but have faced some challenges, either in market performance or channel sentiment declines over the last 12 months.
The analyst warned IBM that it risks losing relevance with the cybersecurity channel "given the scale of its own cybersecurity services practice and divestitures of certain software assets, such as BigFix, which gave many partners a compelling end-point security offering".
Juniper Networks, Zscaler, Trend Micro and Kaspersky Lab secured their positions in the Grower quadrant by supporting the channel community and making improvements in performance and channel feedback.
Canalys praised Trend Micro for its approach to its Deep Security and TippingPoint lines, each of which requires different channel tactics to perform in the market. It is predicted to play a key role in "helping move the channel to a new model of selling cybersecurity".
Ketaki Borade, research analyst, stated: "Cybersecurity is an evolving market. According to Canalys cybersecurity findings, security-as-a-service deployments will account for 16 per cent of the total cybersecurity market by 2020.
"Vendors will establish diverse business models to address the move from software deployment to services, and one of the biggest challenges during this move will be maintaining a channel-centric approach. The ever-evolving channel still plays a vital role in cybersecurity routes to market."