More mainstream by the minute

I'm not going to spend long on this because I'm having a break from all things work related, and that includes my blog, but Hoff deserves a special 'hoorah' for this article.

It's nice to see people sitting up and listening to data security. Chris, this is for you: "Hoorah!"

Taking a break

The rent on my flat in Barcelona is nearly up, and I've still got a few cupboards full of trinkets, and books. An unbelievable number of books. My wife is a reader, not in the sense that normal people are readers, reading maybe a book a week - which until I got married I thought was going it some. No, she will read a book a day, sometimes 2 or 3 if I'm neglecting her and working. I know Spain must have been hard on her (didn't understand the TV, and no-one else spoke English) because I now have to import the equivalent of the British Library back across Europe in a couple of suitcases.

Rather than making a few trips over and trying to ram it all in suitcases, which would take a thousand trips anyway, I'm going to take it easy and have a break. I've been in San Francisco, Paris, London, Manchester, Trowbridge (yes, there!) in the last couple of weeks, and I'm shattered. Frankly I don't want to take another flight, but I'm still paying for the flat in Spain, so I may as well make use of it. I'm still on call, but I'm going to tune out and drop off for a few days, try and recharge my batteries.

I've got to go to Norway and Gibraltar before Christmas (not to mention Runcorn) anyway and I need some sleep right now. Not sure Barcelona is the best place for it, but it's either that or imploding at Christmas, and I did that last year after an operation which left me open to infection and what felt like food poisoning - only without the pleasure of food beforehand. I'd rather chill out for a bit and gear up for January. Now that's going to be exciting - more business than ever and hopefully a new member of staff - hooray, half the number of back breaking plane trips, half as many support calls and only one salesman to deal with each.

What's the betting it doesn't work out like that?

What's happening to Data Security?

It's been a bad week for Data Security. First of all, on Tuesday, Alistair Darling, our illustrious Chancellor of the Exchequer, had to stand up and apologise to the entire country for losing 35 million records from HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs), our version of the IRS, and the NAO, or National Audit Office. Apparently it was down to 'junior staff' walking out with names on disks. Isn't it always?

Secondly, and I'm allowed to talk about this now, because, like EVERYONE knows already, NeoScale are in big trouble having put all their financial eggs in one MTI-shaped basket. Doh. Rich Mogull covers this better than I will even attempt to, and I'm slightly uncomfortable in knocking them, being as I am, in the same industry and working for a major competitor.

Things were looking up after Vontu were acquired, and I thought data security was in for another golden age, but maybe the message is still too bloody slow in getting across the Atlantic. Bad government in the UK is a given these days, it's why I left in the first place, sadly I had to come back. However, bad business management on the other side of the pond is really surprising to still see. I guess some tech companies are led by techies, and some are led by businessmen.

Channel vision

I've talked before about Cisco and how they hit the market at exactly the right time with the right product. But these guys never needed distribution networks like the UK channel, they created the UK channel. The world NEEDED Cisco kit. There was nothing else, computers were booming and networking was king. The channel sprouted up out of nothing almost overnight to cope with demand, pure and simple economics.


I've mentioned Juniper and a million other "second phase" technologies as I will now be referring to them as. These are the ones who took advantage of the newly created channel of distributors and resellers to sell a whole new set of technologies, built on the holes in the existing ones. Now the economics began to work differently, the channel had to get smarter, employ people who understood the technology and 'add value'. How many distis and resellers are now called 'value added distis or resellers'?


Many of the people driving these sales from the US had been responsible for at least part of the first phase too. This is where they cut their teeth, watching the millionaire being made, and doing it for themselves in the second phase. The second phase is now mature, many technologies are being acquired, resellers and distis too as everything amalgamates into a giant Googlemonster. However, this leaves us with an interesting development.

When I left the channel some months back, despite some great people and reasonably interesting technologies, I felt as though the brakes were on. I thought there was more value in being a technology leader. I aimed way over the top as it happened, too visionary for the UK market right now at least. All this did was confirm one thing, the channel was too 'safe', or as I said back then, stagnant.

The problem is, the people who have come in under the value added generation have been led to believe that there is a set way of doing things which just works. And to an extent it does. Juniper did very well out of the current distribtution model for example. However, Juniper are now the Cisco of yesterday, becoming self sufficient. There is very little value that the old-style channel can add.

So what happens? The channel gets bloated and filled with marginal value adding, carrying already fat technologies because the status quo isn't being changed.


My friend wants to change that, and so do I. They are bringing new technologies in in the old way, helping small companies to grow, not already established ones. The new way is just the old way in a new hat, but it took it being waved under my nose to recognise it.

Computer Weekly article

The title wasn't quite what I'd put, but I guess journalism is sensationalist these days.

Here's the article I've been promising for a couple of weeks, and fits in with a lot of what I've been writing the last few days.

Enjoy.

Security goes mainstream

Who saw Dilbert today?

Just call me Mordac.

A moment of clarity

I was having lunch with an old friend the other day when I mentioned what a great response I'd had to the recent articles I've been doing on US and UK sales. The friend in question just happens to be the man who employed me in my last stint in the UK channel, and he was interested to know more. He has since left the same company that I worked for and started again, doing it his way.

He mentioned to me that the channel seemed to be getting very stale for a lot of the smaller technologies, which is why he started small again. My mind flashed through a thousand posts at once and suddenly everything seemed to make sense.

I've bemoaned the fact that security is stagnating here before. Richard Stiennon took me to task for it, and even compared me to Mike Rothman, which was very hurtful (joke Mike!). I remember thinking at the time it was unfair, because whereas Mike had been pontificating a bit, I was genuinely struggling to see where we would go next as a reasonably sophisticated market started to dig its heels in.

I spoke to another friend of mine from the same distributor not long ago, and he practically whined that no-one was buying anything. He blamed everything from sub-prime mortgages to the exchange rate to Gordon Brown, which no doubt all have their faults, but I'm pretty sure stuff is still being sold. I'm so busy personally that I can't even arrange a doctor's appointment to fix my DVT. We have a great product and a really good team in the UK, but that doesn't mean we created a market from nothing. The opportunities are out there, you just have to stand out from the crowd.

Tomorrow I'll be covering what we talked about in more detail, and yet another view of the channel.