WatchGuard Technologies in the wake of acquiring Panda Security last June has moved to unify its channel programs.
As part of the acquisition of Panda Security, a provider of endpoint protection software, WatchGuard added 6,500 partners to a global WatchGuardONE channel that now includes 18,000 active partners, says Michelle Welch, senior vice president of marketing for WatchGuard.
WatchGuard doesn’t plan to immediately sunset the existing single-tier channel program that Panda Security had employed, adds Welch. However, any partner that seeks to combine products originally developed by Panda Security with offerings from WatchGuard will need to become part of the two-tier WatchGuardONE channel program.
That two-tier WatchGuardONE program requires partners to acquire products via a distributor.
“Everything we do goes through distribution,” says Welch.
WatchGuard has also added a specialization for endpoint security to its program and is encouraging former Panda Security to also achieve existing Network Security, Multi-Factor Authentication, and Secure Wi-Fi specializations. Partners that attain specialization in just one of these four product families achieve full WatchGuardONE status with no revenue thresholds or product portfolio adoption requirements. The goal is to make it simpler for partners to fully participate in the WatchGuardONE program, notes Welch.
WatchGuard acquired Panda Security as part of a wave of consolidation that is occurring across the cybersecurity sector. Organizations are increasingly moving toward consuming security as a service, which is driving vendors to expand their portfolios to include offering that span everything from the endpoint to the cloud.
It’s not clear at what rate that transition will occur, but in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that shift is clearly accelerating as more employees continue to work from home. The network perimeter that many organizations relied on appliances to defend is dissolving. The challenge partners now face is determining to what degree they want to resell a service versus a product, which can be an especially challenging decision if they already provide managed security services that they constructed themselves.
On the plus side, reselling managed security services reduces the total cost for partners. That can be crucial because competition among managed security service providers remains fierce. Despite increased demand for external cybersecurity expertise, it remains difficult for partners to be profitable. WatchGuard is essentially making a case for partners to transition to a recurring revenue model that may be more profitable for partners even though less revenue per customer engagement may be going to the partner.
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