McAfee Adds Another Notch on Its Partner Belt with Brocade Alliance

Event Summary

February 16, 2010 – Brocade and McAfee formed a partnership to insure that McAfee’s network security technologies interoperate with Brocades switching, routing and load balancing portfolio. The multi-year agreement, which initially covers McAfee firewall, intrusion prevention and network access technology, also calls for joint marketing, sales and channel support from the two vendors.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on the strategic partnership between Brocade and McAfee, because it allows both vendors to pursue a solutions sale to customers that require upfront both network connectivity and security. Brocade’s Foundry networking unit can now compete more on a par with Cisco and Juniper with a full complement of switches, routers and network security products.

• Vendor Importance: High to McAfee, because it brings the company to the table for larger deals that it was locked out of in the past, and because it will help to soften the eventual blow McAfee will likely see in its relationship with Hewlett Packard, once the 3Com/TippingPoint acquisition closes. Initially moderate to Brocade, because only a small handful of customers are requiring a security component in their networking RFIs. But more customers are asking about security, and their sales force and channel partners in the last year indicated that a networking security solution is becoming more important to have in their sales pitches.

• Market Impact: Moderate on the network security market, because while this brings an important new sales channel for McAfee, it’s still primarily focused on joint channel partners, and it will take time to complete the integrations planned between their respective networking and security products as well as management products. In addition, it’s the third in a series of partnerships struck between McAfee and a networking company.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Strengths and Weaknesses

Response & Recommendations

Buyer Actions

Analytical Perspective

| Client access - Full report in Enterprise Security | More information

Top