Hoping to rally support for its nascent integrated security effort, Symantec Corp. on Monday unveiled a new partner program that provides technical assistance for security vendors who commit to integrating their products with Symantecs.
The Symantec Technology Partner Program is designed to create an ecosystem of vendors around the companys Enterprise Security Architecture and Security Management System, much like the strategy that Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. has used to establish its firewalls and VPNs as the industry standards. Among the initial members of Symantecs program are Blue Coat Systems Inc., Entercept Security Technologies, and Top Layer Networks Inc.
The SMS is the Cupertino, Calif., companys play in the security event management market, a portion of the industry that analysts and vendors expect to be one of the most profitable and fastest growing in the next few years. Symantecs offering pulls together information from all of the companys various security products and aggregates it to help administrators see a total picture of their networks security.
Now, Symantec officials want to develop relationships with as many security vendors as possible so that the SMS will be able to handle alerts and information from those vendors products as well. Several other vendors, including Computer Associates International Inc., are pursuing similar strategies.
For their part, Symantecs new partners get a broad range of technical and marketing assistance. The perks include integration tools such as SDKs, access to Symantec software engineers and online developer tools. The companies will also be part of joint public relations efforts with Symantec and will be able to use Symantecs logos and other marketing tools.
“Integrating with Symantec has provided our joint customers with one of the most deployable, high-performance Web anti-virus solutions on the market today,” said Charles Dauber, vice president of marketing for Blue Coat Systems, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. “Symantecs Technology Partner Program allows us to couple the industrys leading anti-virus technology with Blue Coats optimized Web security platform, further safeguarding enterprises from the threat of viruses, worms and Trojans traversing open holes in the firewall.”
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