CrowdStrike Europe Partner Symposium 2024: The partner verdict
Computacenter, Bytes and SEP2 gave CRN their thoughts on the second annual conference hosted in Venice, Italy
CrowdStrike is gunning for $10bn by 2030 with its channel partners front and centre to its strategy to get there.
This is what the vendor's partners heard at the second Europe Partner Symposium in Venice, Italy.
During the two-day conference CRN spoke to a handful of CrowdStrike's top execs who gave their respective headline messages to partners.
But what did the channel think of the event's keynotes, CrowdStrike's strategy, and its messaging to partners?
CRN caught up with three of those partners who attended the symposium - Computacenter, Bytes and SEP2 - to get their view on CrowdStrike's updates.
Dr Colin Williams, chief technologist - networking, security & unified communications at Computacenter
What have been some of your biggest takeaways from the event?
"The CrowdStrike story has materially evolved, building on the strength and success of the endpoint agent to be a serious contender in the platform wars."
What have you made of the event's announcements from a partner perspective?
"The opportunity to take existing CrowdStrike endpoint customers on a transformational journey is real, with the additional modules offering beneficial functionality to justify the cost of change."
What do you feel CrowdStrike's top partner message is?
"The power of ‘and.'
"It's now clear CrowdStrike acknowledges they cannot realise their growth or transformation objectives without the value delivered by channel partners.
"All of the event messaging was pivoted to ensure partners were aware they are key and CrowdStrike will invest in them to unlock incremental value for both parties."
Was there anything left out that you were expecting to hear about? / Were there any announcements that surprised you?
"They discussed the EDR endpoint security functionality less than expected but to a degree this is a mature offering in a very mature space.
"I was pleased that genAI was mentioned extensively in context rather than sprinkling it everywhere in the narrative ‘just because.'
"Charlotte AI as both a concept and early stage functionality surprised me because it's clear CrowdStrike intends to make the human / AI interlock / interplay a seamless experience (without the user stepping into and out of an AI module, they simply use the platform and it's there).
"Even with a limited view of the functionality in Next-Gen SIEM, Charlotte AI looks very powerful and action centric. The Next-Gen SIEM live demo was very very powerful and impressive, with the platform offering functions with ease that other vendors may find challenging."
What do you make of CrowdStrike's strategy and how it affects your business?
"Positive. I saw nothing that wasn't achieved as a set of activities aligned to a goal.
"I liked the coherence of the marketing and messaging elements (with off the shelf, well formed partner deliverables).
"All up, a good showing from CrowdStrike with the bulk of the event offering action centric takeaways a partner can leave the event with and make real changes to their business (not simply a monologue of new features, updates and chest beating)."
CrowdStrike Europe Partner Symposium 2024: The partner verdict
Computacenter, Bytes and SEP2 gave CRN their thoughts on the second annual conference hosted in Venice, Italy
Tim Ward, co-founder, director, business development at SEP2
What have been some of your biggest takeaways from the event?
"The content has been great from CrowdStrike. The messaging has come across really well from the executive team, who have all been accessible and welcoming.
"One of the things I've taken away as director as SEP2 is, as a CrowdStrike partner for just over two years, the messaging around the ability to provide one platform.
"That certainly resonates for us as a partner with SEP2.security being our platform that's able to integrate together and provide our customers with the leading cybersecurity agent from CrowdStrike.
"For me to take aways has been the people and also the community. I've had some great conversations with other partners, and also with some system integrators as well."
What have you made of the event's announcements from a partner perspective?
"I thought the first presentation from CrowdStrike president Mike Sentonas was really good and clear.
"The messaging in their plan for significant growth and that they see partners as a key element of that 'm genuinely excited about that and going on it together.
"Also the tools that they're going to give the partners to do that as well. One of the biggest things that I think has been really clear and positive has been the Falcon Flex capability.
"With SEP2.security one of the things we're able to provide our customers is the programme for that journey so that they can get what they need when they need that from CrowdStrike from that portfolio.
"That helps the customer to keep the cost down on the security as fast as possible."
What do you feel CrowdStrike's top partner message is?
"The messaging around the whole platform play and the ability for our SEP2 customers to utilise the different elements that are available there.
"Falcon Flex has been key to go on that journey in terms of helping the customers move away from legacy and onto the CrowdStrike platform."
Was there anything left out that you were expecting to hear about? / Were there any announcements that surprised you?
"I thought the messaging was clear. There were updates on some areas, such as Falcon Flex.
"There was also more collaboration with the hyperscalers, which is good.
"There was more detail in terms of our partners are going to be involved in and helping you achieve that $10bn together.
"It was really good to see how they analysed the different elements that make that up in terms of the cybersecurity elements.
"And that's one thing as SEP2, we're an MSSP and SEP2.security is able to deliver that when the customers need it through Falcon Flex."
What do you make of CrowdStrike's strategy and how it affects your business?
"One of the things has been the engagement with the CrowdStrike teams, both from a technical and commercial point of view.
"There's great collaboration there. Also, the partner portal, which has been upgraded, has been really helpful from a marketing point of view in order to get co-branding messaging out together to create that pipeline for the SEP2 sales team.
"One of the things that I enjoy a lot is the regular feed of information from CrowdStrike. It's relevant, it's punchy, and it's really beneficial for our customers as well.
"And the message resonates with customers as well because with CrowdStrike having that one agent approach organisations are looking to consolidate. Through SEP2.security we're able to provide that."
CrowdStrike Europe Partner Symposium 2024: The partner verdict
Computacenter, Bytes and SEP2 gave CRN their thoughts on the second annual conference hosted in Venice, Italy
David Rawle, group CTO, Bytes
What have been some of your biggest takeaways from the event?
"The biggest takeaway from me is the way CrowdStrike wants to work with the partner community, and how they're living, not just saying.
"I think it's an underlying theme of CrowdStrike as a vendor. There are vendors out there that talk the talk but don't necessarily walk the walk. And CrowdStrike genuinely do both.
"When they make a commitment they follow through on it, in terms of their commitment to the channel and partners.
"In the same way that historically, the technologies have shone through.
"So for me the main takeaway from the event is that closeness, the relationship is really strong. The execs are happy to talk to us, engage and listen to ideas. In my experience, from a technology point of view that's fairly unusual for them to be open to ideas from us.
"I think some of the bigger vendors, and maybe more established vendors have an attitude that they think they know best and the partner should be doing it their way.
"CrowdStrike is a more dynamic company than that."
What have you made of the event's announcements from a partner perspective?
"The flex-based pricing and modelling That has been announced has been really helpful.
"Even just the fact that we're now almost treating Europe as equals alongside North America, in terms of conferences, and messaging etc."
What do you feel CrowdStrike's top partner message is?
"One question I had for CrowdStrike was ‘what are the two things you want us to take away?'
"The main one that I was asked to take away was the messaging around Next-Gen SIEM and the way it can benefit customers.
"I think it's clear that event management has been a burden for businesses rather than an opportunity. A lot of businesses outsource it, very few businesses build their own capability around a SOC.
"Next-Gen SIEM and the AI piece with Charlotte AI, bringing all that together gives customers the opportunity to do it themselves."
What do you make of CrowdStrike's strategy and how it affects your business?
"Coming out of the pandemic we saw a lot of businesses spend a lot of money on tools and business transformation.
"What I've certainly seen is that businesses have now got to the point that they're spending on things they already had and going down those routes has taken them as far as they can.
"Businesses are now looking for much more technical conversations rather than just cost optimisation.
"They're looking for environmental improvement, sustainability. They're looking for a technology change and AI is right at the edge of that.
"Businesses are looking at technology. And they're looking to do things differently to give themselves differentiators.
"The market is fairly flat out there. There's not a lot of businesses being formed, or new stuff.
"In that kind of world CrowdStrike is a fantastic vendor to work with because it does technically differentiate itself.
"That's the thing about them that's always been the thing about them. It is a differentiating product.
"That makes them a very good product for us to work with. Because it gives us the ability to actually design, build and create different things and to do things in a different way."