'So many vendors out there are monetising misery' -Trellix CRO on rational behind new name for McAfee and FireEye business
New name promotes nurturing and supporting role of cybersecurity, CRO Adam Philpott tells CRN
The combined McAfee Enterprise and FireEye business emerged with a new name today under its private equity owner Symphony Technology Group (STG).
STG announced in October that it planned to merge McAfee Enterprise and FireEye to create a "pure play cubersecurity market leader" with $2bn revenues, 40,000 customers and 5,000 staff.
The chosen name for the new cybersecurity giant is Trellix.
The name stems from the word trellis - a structure, usually made of wood, which gives support to plants such as shrubs or vines to allow them to grow.
Trellix says that the word is designed to evoke a "strong and safe framework" and communicates the vendor's promise to deliver "living security" that learns and adapts to protect against "the most advanced threat actors".
Speaking to CRN, Trellix CRO Adam Philpott said the name choice is also a direct reaction against the "dark and fearful" messaging from other cybersecurity vendors in the market.
"There are so many bloody vendors out there who are monetising misery with names that sound like ‘black death', it's all very dark and fearful," he said.
" We actually see the flipside of that. Organisations have to take risks in order to grow. If they don't take risks, they don't grow and they die, so they become their own risk by not taking risks. Our job is to help them take risks and help them grow and thrive by helping to manage the risks they're exposed to by nurturing and supporting them."
"It's very different to what we see in the market. Because I think the market has grown to a point where they don't want these individual fearful products, they need a framework to thrive, because every company is a technology company today."
Bringing two channels together
Two vendors coming together can often be a headache for the channel community. Symantec partners faced uncertainty after it sold up to Broadcom, with other cybersecurity vendors including CrowdStrike and Trend Micro claiming that partners were joining them from Symantec in their droves in the aftermath of the acquisition.
Philpott said that he will be looking to avoid mistakes made by other vendors and minimise disruption to partners as McAfee and FireEye come together.
Trellix's laser focus on the extended detection and response (XDR) market will help make the transition easier, he said.
"I think now is the time for us to really connect and communicate more than ever with our partners to go through that process with them. But I do think there is a difference in what we're doing and that is around focus."
"We need to not be complacent and really spend time with our partners navigating that not only communicating to them what we're doing, but actually listening. What do they need, how can we help, how do we tweak and shift as we go through this with them? Because, ultimately, that's what partnerships are."
STG will launch the McAfee Enterprise secure service edge (SSE) portfolio as a separate business later this quarter, including its cloud access security broker (CASB), secure web gateway (SWG) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions.