Sophos: Acquisition is good for channel
Internet security firm Sophos is seeking to reassure partners that its recent sale to a private equity group is a positive move for the company.
Last month Sophos agreed to sell the majority of business to Apax Partners in a transaction valuing the company at $830m.
“There have been no changes to the senior management team and no change to our channel strategy,” Ciaran Rafferty, VP, UK & Ireland told Channel Pro. “[The sale] gives us access to $2bn worth of investment. It enables us to grow the business, and [partners] will benefit from it. It allows us to act like a private company, with the pockets of a public company.”
Continues Rafferty: “Apax only invests in profitable companies; the market is growing at just below 10 percent, and we’re posting two and half times that figure, 27 percent.”
Rafferty admits that without any consumer products, the Sophos brand isn’t as well-known as its high street rivals, although the recent investment enables the firm to “put more resources into engineering, sales and help getting the brand back into the face of customers.”
Sophos is continuing to hunt for new resellers, particularly targeting the public sector, where Sophos already has a large footprint in the NHS. In addition, Rafferty says the firm is winning more large enterprise contracts and is keen to build on this.
Elsewhere, Sophos has teamed up with law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse to help educate organisations about the consequences of security breaches and data loss. Since April, the ICO can fine organisations up to £500,000 if they are in serious breach of the Data Protection Act, prompting Sophos and Field Fisher Waterhouse to hold bi-monthly data protection breakfast briefings and security forums as well as publishing a selection of whitepapers to make firms aware of the issue.
