Juniper / Symantec
on September 13th, 2006 at 8:30 am
OK, let me start this out with a disclaimer: I am going to work for Accuvant (as most of you know by now since I can’t stop blogging about it), and they are a big Juniper reseller. They do not sell Cisco, so they drink the purple Kool-Aid. Also, I am a fan of Juniper when it comes to many of their security products (I love their SSL VPN and their firewall / VPN devices, but their IPS leaves something to be desired). All that being said, you might think I am going to say something positive about this deal between Juniper and Symantec. Well, you’re right and wrong.
First, I agree with Mike Rothman’s comments:
…adding Symantec’s anti-spam, IPS signatures, and vulnerability research to Juniper’s products will make them better and I think it will actually happen. Why wouldn’t Juniper do this, given they are pretty much irrelevant in the IPS space and don’t really have a compelling UTM platform? They’ve got nothing to lose.
I also agree with Mike that this mostly comes from a “We Hate Cisco” reaction. I don’t think Cisco is the best out there in most things that they do. They do many things decently, but they are not the top in quality. But they ARE Cisco, and they are taking so much of the market for the simple fact that nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco.
The fact that Richard Stiennon hates this deal is not surprising. Stiennon is negative on just about anything that ever happens in security nowdays simply because he doesn’t agree with the direction security is taking, namely “host plus network security”. However, his perspective that Juniper and Symantec have not taken advantage of opportunities given to them is correct. Symantec is the epitome of the “bumbling giant”. I don’t think Juniper is anywhere close to that yet, but Stiennon has to lump them in because, again, he is negative about anything to do with NAC, UTM, etc.
I don’t like this deal because it is with Symantec. I just don’t like how Symantec works and I don’t like John Thompson (especially after his keynote at RSA 2005). But I like this deal from the fact that it can help Juniper leverage Symantec’s knowledge. Juniper NEEDS to become a premier security knowledge source on the par of Symantec or TippingPoint if they ever hope to be completely respected in this arena. Building boxes ain’t gonna do it. What I am hoping is that they use Symantec to maybe help them learn how to do this themselves.
Vet
Hi Michael,
Just found your site by searching google about juniper. I am really trying to find ways on how to sell juniper with people being too “cisco-minded”. I just took on a job last monday with a new distributor of juniper in the philippines. We are one of the two and my resellers are still sided on cisco and i understand that since most clients still requires cisco. But what i’d like to know is what’s the best way to convice resellers and clients in this industry to just try juniper or even consider it.
I am actually a bit stressed by the amount of sale i have to generate in 6 months (USD600K), for a market which is still hesitant on trying a product like juniper.
Your response will be greatly appreciated.
Hey! No fair. I am not negative on everything lately. I am just negative on big security companies making press releases that they cannot follow through on. Cisco-NAC. Juniper+Symantec. Check Point + Sourcefire. That sort of thing. There are some great things going on in security right now. Check out Sana and Solidcore for the end point. And Brabreion for auditing/assessment/compliance. And TriCipher for authentication. And look at all the leak prevention companies announcing partnerships in the last two weeks. Great, awesome things going on.
-RS