UTMs make a play for the enterprise

Having been a name synonymous with enabling security for the SMB segment, WatchGuard CEO Joe Wang on his first visit to GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2012 says he’s now placing the stakes higher up into the enterprise segment. Interestingly, Wang says security is now turning on its head – from technology to the art of effective management of threats.

Wang is clearly excited about the opportunities the Middle East market offers. Having seen an 84% growth year on year, he’s also quick to add that this has led his company to deliver its first automatic configuration UTM product that he believes will stand distributed enterprises in the region in good stead.

“Security today is a lot about enabling customers to manage their environments better. It’s no longer about re-inventing the wheel with technology but about integrating best-in-class products backed by performance and management tools,” he says.

For long having been relegated to the smb segment, Wang says that UTMs are now fast finding their way into enterprise environments, especially to cater to the needs of security at branch offices. He’s at GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2012 particularly to share the launch of its product built to suit virtualized and cloud environments in enterprise data centres.

According to Wang, growing trends like cloud and BYOD are also pushing the need for enterprises to think security management. “Earlier you could say that there was a clear segmentation between the needs of mid to large enterprises and the smaller companies. However, organisations are becoming distributed in their structure which means that branch-level security needs to be managed as well,” he explains.

This is certainly good news for Watchguard, that has for long been holding its spot as one of the top three players in the UTM space. “We are not re-inventing the wheel here, but integrating best in class technology from our partners that combines AV, anti-spam, web filtering etc through our partnerships with AVG, Websense for web filtering, BroadWeb for application control and offering better performance and management,” Wang says.

Going forward, the company will continue to add technology support to newer environments and devices including smartphones.