PATEL: Till 18 months ago, antivirus accounted for 95 % of our business. Today we have broadened our portfolio and AV makes up for 70-75% of the business. We have been defocusing from being an AV company to being an end-to-end provider of security solutions. So a relatively small company like McAfee now has to precondition the market and create awareness before we take our products there. So, our channel partners are a critical part for our go-to-market plan, especially the mid-market. Our strategy for this market is to have a two-tier distribution model. Earlier, we had a set of resellers for McAfee brands. When we acquired Secure Computing, we had resellers who were focused on network solutions. Now we are trying to cross work across both channels.

PATEL: We did include most of them. We took them through a transition plan which meant that there were some requirements for accreditation. I want to highlight that it is an evolution. Another important aspect is recognition of the right partners.
Partners who have been specializing in providing firewall solutions etc now also have an opportunity to sell network DLP solutions. So, we are able to offer a better portfolio to both customers and partners. We have made investments in partner programs and come up with awards to recognize partners.

PATEL: We have revamped it and we are in the process of further investing and broadening our partner program. In the next 18 months, our plan is to have more focus on the mid market and on the channels. We have recently recruited a new leader for our partners-Alex Thurber joined us from Cisco, a company whose partner program is considered to be the benchmark in the industry.

He is now putting in place a program for the channels. So, we are working on coming out with something more innovative and something which gives us the leadership position.

PATEL: From a Unified Threat Management (UTM) perspective, it’s very important. SMBs in India are open to new technologies. It’s very affordable too. So, UTM fits well. We have an upper hand because all the technologies we provide are our intellectual property.

PATEL: We offer a broad set of solutions at an affordable price. A customer or a partner does not have to work with multiple vendors. Besides, we offer value for money. We also offer a platform which provides a single interface (ePO interface and console) to manage multiple solutions and we encourage our partners to complement that.

PATEL: This technology is ideal for small to medium-sized companies. In India, with umpteen entrepreneurs, such a technology makes a lot of sense. Globally, this market is growing at 22 % and this is expected to continue till 2012, according to research forms.

Today, our product can support up to 500 users if it’s used only as a firewall. But if you switch all the functions on, it can support a couple of hundred users. So we are working on releasing an x86 based UTM appliance by middle of this year. We are also looking to deliver our cloud based services for our UTM portfolio.

PATEL: I started selling cloud security services more than three years ago with my previous company. Within nine months, we doubled our customer base. Today, more and more users are demanding utility computing. Customers are asking why they should go buy hardware and software, manage them and still pay shocking prices for upgrades and support cost. Customers want IT to be like a tap. So, cloud will see more takers in the coming days.

PATEL: Today we have enterprise customers who have distributed branches. We have in fact had significant success in the enterprise segment today. So, I would say enterprises use UTM in a different way than SMBs do. It’s not a mission critical piece in their IT. On the other hand, firewall and intrusion prevention solutions in an enterprise are now pushed to have a UTM-like capability. For example, the firewall we have for enterprises offers Web filtering as well. So, UTM for enterprises is slightly different concept.

PATEL: We have been consistently witnessing double digit growth. In the APAC region, the UTM market is about $268 million. We are not the leader but we are definitely in the top 5 and our objective is to be in the top 3 in the next 18 months. So, we want a bigger slice of the pie. We are investing either on acquiring new technology or in talent to grow the company. It indicates that we have been successful.

PATEL: Let’s be very honest and direct. Customers and resellers still think of McAfee as an AV company. That still remains the hurdle. So we have to change our projection. The investment we are making in terms of branding and market conditioning is helping us on changing that perception of McAfee as a company.