OPAQ, an Internet service provider (ISP) that embeds cybersecurity as a set of services within its offerings, this week appointed Lynn Tinney to be senior vice president of channels.
After previous channel stints at CA Technologies, Riverbed, and Cisco, Tinney says OPAQ represents a unique opportunity to work with an ISP that was built from the ground up to provide services via channel partners.
Specifically, Tinney says OPAQ is looking to recruit managed service providers (MSPs) that would rather leverage investments made by the ISP to deliver secure pipes versus having to build, deploy and manage those capabilities themselves. Many MSPs are now being required to deliver end customers access to secure networking pipes. The challenge is most MSPs find it difficult to hire and retain cybersecurity expertise that is in chronic short supply.
In fact, Tinney says even managed security service providers (MSSPs) that have already invested in many of these capabilities should have an honest conversation with themselves about where it makes more economic sense to partner than to continue to manage cybersecurity infrastructure residing in multiple on-premises environments.
That especially true as investments in software-defined wide area networking platforms that typically come without built in security continues to exponentially increase across remote offices that MSPs will need to find a way to support at scale, adds Tinney.
“It’s really an economic question,” says Tinney.
Tinney says in the months ahead OPAQ will continue to invest in its channel programs. In the meantime, Tinney notes that in the months ahead there will be more MSPs than ever as traditional resellers continue to evolve their business models. Unlike previous generations of MSPs, however, many of those emerging MSPs may be more comfortable reselling a while label service versus incurring the capital expense associated with building their own security operation center (SOC).
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