SonicWall, the private network security company owned by Francisco Partners and Elliott Management, has announced that it has surpassed the financial and operational metrics set across sales, partner engagement and support, including shipping its three millionth firewall.
“In fewer than eight months, SonicWall has already exceeded the ambitious financial and operational metrics established for the business. We believed in this investment from day one, and we are confident this is only the first chapter of SonicWall’s success story,” said Bill Conner, SonicWall president and CEO. “Cybersecurity professionals are increasingly addressing new cyber threats, like WannaCry, by deploying a record number of SonicWall products and services. We have the right management, the right channel partners, the right technology and the right services, so businesses can run more effectively and fear less.”
In the face of constantly evolving threat vectors, such as the recent WannaCry ransomware attack, SonicWall continues to introduce innovations to the partner community to strengthen those relationships, such as the SecureFirst Partner Programme for channel partners of all types, including resellers, integrators, managed security service providers and security consultants. Since the launch of the programme in November 2016, it has experienced a surge in partner growth and sales –more than 15,000 channel partners across 90 countries have registered for SecureFirst and 4,000 of those partners are new to the company.
In March 2017, SonicWall introduced SonicWall University, a real-time digital and role-based curriculum, driven by intelligence gathered from the company’s Capture Labs and threat researchers. This intelligence is derived and analysed from more than one million network sensors worldwide, coupled with real-time data analytics (via deep learning algorithms). The vendor offers the training and accreditation programme that’s designed to focus and educate partners on current cybersecurity threats, along with new global marketing programmes and incentives to help channel partners reach and protect enterprises around the globe.
SonicWall University has provided more than 10,000 hours of online training and administered more than 19,000 successful exams. Participants are also completing specialisations focused on key areas, such as ransomware, email threats and encrypted threats.
“The active engagement of our partners in our SecureFirst Partner Programme and SonicWall University have exceeded our greatest expectations, with 50 per cent growth in partner deal registration that reflects $250 million in new pipeline,” said Steve Pataky, vice president, Worldwide Sales and Channel. “Since SonicWall became an independent company 100 percent focused on cybersecurity and on channels, we have moved at a blistering pace to deliver cutting-edge support and education to our partners.”
