Security MEA speaks with Michael Berg, Executive Director, EMEA at SonicWall regarding how is the company building on its success and the contribution of their new office in Dubai
What has been the reason for success of SonicWall ?
SonicWall boosts a strong research and product development teams that has been instrumental in creating state of art products with cutting edge technology to offer best possible security as well as best in class Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Partner enablement, trainings and support to both partners and customers has been part of our DNA for 26 years. I think decades of experience in mastering the technology with dedicated partner network, happy customers spread across several industry verticals worldwide and TCO has lend credibility to SonicWall over the years that not every player can match in the market.
Which segment of the market do SonicWall targets?
SonicWall is the acknowledged leader globally and regionally in the SMB customer space, and a leading contender in the Enterprise & Government space as well. Our product portfolio addresses the key threat vectors and we deliver a single-pane-of-glass management, analytics and reporting solution. This is critical to break the silos typically companies are facing with competitive products, which cannot cover all threat vectors.
How would you define your recent move to set up an new office in Dubai?
Dubai is a very important hub for SonicWall for the entire region. With our new office we are demonstrating the importance of this region by establishing a physical presence in the Middle East. We are planning a lot of activities over the coming months that includes, trainings, thought leadership meetings. We welcome potential and existing partners and customers to our new office.
What is SonicWall doing to strengthen its position further in the market?
We are working on our plans for the next fiscal year starting in February. We feel, we have the right setup for the business at the moment, but are striving to add more resources in the following quarters to further extend our coverage, support and enable us to continue our strong growth. Our investment in our product portfolio is continuing as well. We have brought to market 24 new products and 160 Million lines of code in the past 12 months. With this, we are the most agile and innovative security vendor in the industry.
In such a competitive market how do you differentiate yourself from the competition and what are the key advantages SonicWall offers to its customers?
The advantages of SonicWall remain the same: best-in-class TCO and highest security efficacy. This is proven by independent tests, like NSS Labs test report. With our award winning technology, customers are happy to invest in a true secure product. While we see a lot of buzz around machine learning now but SonicWall has been delivering this since 1999.
Over past 26 years, we have captured a vast pool of malware data. With this abundant data and the right algorithms using our patented technologies like RTDMI, we are able to identify many never seen before instances of malware, which ensure our customers can Fear Less whilst they go about their work.
How can regional businesses stay secure and protect their interests?
There are key issues typically left out of sight: protecting their own website with a WAF (Web Application Firewall), turning on DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) SSL to analyze encrypted traffic, always use a cloud-based and multi-engine sandbox, which allows protection against zero day attacks, and protect your E-Mail systems from phishing attacks with an E-Mail security solution. As a final line of defense, protect your endpoints with a next generation AV solution, which is not based on signatures, but behavior, in conjunction with an advanced threat protection sandbox. This is the security concept, which will help detecting and preventing breaches, if done in real time.