According to executives and industry analysts, Symantec Corp.’s recent announcement around acquiring Vontu, a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) company, not only heightens awareness for the still young DLP space, but the planned acquisition will also mean plenty of opportunities for the channel.
Symantec signed a definitive agreement to acquire Vontu last week for $350 million. The deal is expected to close sometime during this year’s fourth quarter, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. Ken Schneider, CTO in the data and security management group at Symantec, says the DLP space is one that Symantec has been particularly interested in over the past couple of years. This interest eventually led to a partnership with Vontu a couple of years ago and from there, the decision to acquire the company was later decided upon.
“As we looked at the evolution of security, we saw it as being more information-centric,” Schneider said. “We wanted to have the comprehensive ability to protect data across all tiers to prevent certain information from leaking out. In our view, Vontu has the best-of-class products. It only made sense for us to partner up with them.”
Symantec’s impending acquisition follows that of other major vendors who have already entered the DLP space.
Fiaaz Walji, country manager for Websense in Canada, notes his company first broke into this space when it acquired PortAuthority in January of this year. Symantec’s acquisition strategy, he says, is only further validation that the DLP space is an important market to be in right now.
“It’s a good thing for the industry,” Walji says, “but it’s also good news, bad news because now there [will be] more folks in this space, so it will make us work harder and from a customer standpoint, customers now have a choice around DLP.”
Once the acquisition has been closed, Symantec plans on layering Vontu’s DLP technologies across some of its existing security solutions, such as network security, endpoint security, storage and compliance. The goal is to provide customers with a solid and comprehensive platform that prevents confidential information and other important data from leakage or loss.
Thomas Raschke, senior analyst of European security and risk management at Forrester Research, EMA, says Symantec’s recent acquisition announcement is a good move for the vendor.
“Enterprises today need to address the problem [of data and infrastructure],” Raschke said. “The majority of companies out there are still clueless on how to properly protect their data. Symantec really never had offerings in this space before. This acquisition will open up the door for Symantec and its channel partners,” he adds.
Once Symantec and Vontu’s solutions are integrated together and are developed, it will be interesting to see how Symantec will incorporate its current partner base with that of Vontu’s, which has only recently started to develop.
“Vontu has done a fantastic job selling with the large enterprise,” Schneider said. “They’ve also just started to develop their channel and the real integration planning with their team and ours will start once we get past the regulatory approvals.”
Raschke explains the DLP space is a fairly immature market that has only been around for the past two to three years. He goes on to say that although still in its embryo stage, the market is quickly growing at speeds at which he estimates almost a doubling year over year. He also warns that DLP solutions, if done right, are very complex in nature and require a lot of work on the partners’ parts.
“Once you figure out what needs to be protected and how to protect it, the solutions themselves require a lot of consulting,” Raschke said. “Security service providers and SIs will be the partners who will most likely benefit the most from these solutions because they can develop offerings around this to offer customization and consulting services to customers.”
From a partner standpoint, Schneider expects Symantec’s channel will see more immediate traction over Vontu’s channel around the new solution of offerings that Symantec plans on bringing to market post-acquisition. He sees large enterprises and vertical markets such as legal and healthcare sectors as ones that will quickly jump on board these offerings.
“Customers need to understand where their sensitive information is in the company,” Schneider says. “This can range from drivers licenses, customer information and company spreadsheets and the list goes on. Customers need to spend more time seeing where their information is and then they must figure out how they can secure it.”