LAS VEGAS – Chris Young, the executive who spearheaded Cisco’s acquisition of SourceFire, was lured over to Intel Security about a month ago to run the former McAfee business for the chip making giant.
At the Focus 14 Partner Summit, Young asked himself in front of approximately 500 worldwide channel partners “why am I here?”
The reason Young left a high profile job at Cisco Systems is because Intel Security offers size, scope and the channel.
“Every large IT company has made a big security acquisition. Cisco, EMC, and even IBM and HP with ArcSight. But the other organizations do not have the size and scope of Intel. At Intel we have more than 8,000 people dedicated to solving the security problem. We can go broad and deep with the threat. I also see the same value with the partners. You are a trusted partners for us,” Young said.
One of Young’s biggest challenges as the new Intel Security boss is to get more mindshare from the channel.
He said that Intel Security/McAfee only has approximately 10 per cent of the top channel partner’s share of wallet. The goal for 2015 is to convince more solution providers to make Intel Security their primary security vendor partner.
“We have created too much complexity and fragmentation in the industry. It’s fine to have other security vendor partners because of this because you have to give customers best of class to solve the complex problems out there. But some of these have 150 security programs from about 50 vendors. So you can ask who solves problem No. 87?”
Currently 80 per cent of Intel Security/McAfee’s business flows through the channel. In the last quarter, Young said approximately 50 deals have surpassed the million dollar mark. McAfee’s next generation firewall is growing by 40 per cent. “So have faith and confidence in us,” Young added.
Also the McAfee brand will continue. Intel Security last January dropped the McAfee name for Intel Security, which put into question the long term future of the brand. McAfee will now live on as a product brand, while Intel will be the master brand.
Mike Fey, the CTO of Intel Security, said that channel partners in general tend to work with too many security vendors.
“There is a business behind this,” he said. “Intel Security does bring a better business case because the likelihood of a second product sale with us is 86 per cent. We have a critical selling motion and what happens after you sell a security end point is that second, third and even forth sale does become easier. If you own the account and get their total spend on security; I get it, you own it and you can offer the best. But if you are fighting to get into an account think about how easy the selling motion I and try to augment it,” Fey said.
He suggested that if a solution provider decides to choose Intel Security as their primary vendor partner to then choose two other vendors for augmenting McAfee solutions.
“Some of the most powerful partners we have are core in one space and then do security with a security vendor. They may offer cloud services and then security. That is the ‘with fries model’. If you are only in security it dictated what vendor you have.”
