The leaves are falling and there’s a chill in the air, which means two things – winter is coming, and so is an avalanche of IT-related predictions for 2013. And first off the mark is Websense, a security software and solutions vendor based in San Diego, Calif.
Kurt Mills, the vice-president of worldwide sales for the company, has three channel-related trends he expects to see in the coming year:
1. Partners will consolidate their vendor roster
“The partners I talk to are finding that they can’t succeed as well with numerous vendors anymore,” Mills says. “They’re looking to be more focused with fewer vendors. If there’s three functions they don’t want customers to deal with three different security management reporting consoles.”
2. Customer demands are driving partners to require more flexibility from vendors
“Customers are becoming more diversified in how they run their business-it’s not a one-size fits all situation anymore,” Mills says. “They might want an on-premise security solution at their HQ but a cloud-based solution for their mobile workforce. Partners want to accommodate, which means they’re looking for vendors who provide the flexibility of doing on-premise, cloud or hybrid deployments for any given solution.”
3. Partners are looking for increased routes to market
“You’re going to continue to see partners diversify from not only reselling, but to leveraging the cloud and doing managed services,” Mills says. “As customers are growing more evolved in how they handle their networks, the applications they work with and the threats they face, that magnifies the importance of providing a flexible set of services and products.”
More focused on the security front, the team at Websense Labs is expecting more cross-platform threats involving mobile devices, legitimate mobile apps stores hosting malware, an increase in government-sponsored attacks and hackers working their way around virtual environments and sandboxes.
