Fighting the Next Generation of Cybsecurity Threats: With the SonicWall Security Spin Out — by Bill Conner, President and CEO, SonicWall
Like any veteran of the cybersecurity field, I’ve known SonicWall by its sterling reputation since the company’s early days as a business network security solution provider. Today, it’s a great privilege to find myself at the helm of this world-class team during not only one of the most exciting times in the business’ 25-year history, but also the most complex and critical cybersecurity landscape the world has ever seen.
I’ve been part of the networking and security industries for more than 30 years, most recently as President and CEO of Silent Circle, an encrypted communications provider, and prior to that as President and CEO of Entrust, an identity-based data security solutions provider. I also served as President of Data Networks at Nortel, and later President of Enterprise Networks at the company, where I led the $9 billion acquisition of Bay Networks.
That experience has given me a broad and deep perspective on how to stay ahead of ever-changing global threats to give customers and partners the security tools they need. It comes down to a balanced marriage of customer and partner relationships, continuous product innovation and sustained support of core, industry-leading products.
SonicWall built its reputation on its amazing partnerships with customers and channel partners. Becoming an Independent company is going to enable us to focus even more clearly on these relationships, serving markets of all sizes with specific strengths in large distributed environments, campus education, retail, financial, healthcare and government institutions.
We will continue our tradition of teaming exclusively with channel partners to identify and deploy the best network security, access security and e-mail security solutions for each environment. As evidence of this commitment, we recently announced our SonicWall SecureFirst Partner Program, introducing increased reward for value benefits, deal protection and expanded technical enablement on the SonicWall portfolio. Our friends at Dell will also remain an important part of the SonicWall community as a reseller partner, a relationship that was strong before the acquisition, grew over the last four years, and will continue to expand.
But it isn’t just SonicWall’s relationships that have made the company a global leader — it’s the company’s continuous achievements as a driving force in cybersecurity innovation. Today, our clients’ networks are protected by one of the most advanced tools on the market, the cloud-based Capture Advanced Threat Protection Service. Our team of product engineers recognized that for advanced threat protection solutions to truly stop unknown and zero-day attacks, they would need to use a multi-engine approach leveraging cloud-based sandboxing and would need to provide simple, automated remediation. Becoming an independent company will give us the freedom to react even more quickly to changing market conditions and take advantage of new ideas and opportunities as we identify them.
At the same time, it’s important that we continue to provide the industry-leading products that have made us a trusted name in defense-in-depth protection. It’s because of these core products that our customers remain safer than ever, even as cyber threats grow and shapeshift.
I am so thrilled to be part of SonicWall’s future as we continue to build upon the practices that have made the company great for 25 years, while also exploring new opportunities for growth and development. From the leadership team to the employee base to you, our valued customers and partners, the SonicWall community is poised for great things ahead as we eagerly enter this new era of innovation and growth together.
