Eight Security Vendor Updates from RSA 2023

Palo Alto Networks has launched a partner-to-partner initiative designed to help MSPs that don’t have a SOC offer white-label managed security through others that do.

“We’re doing it on a small scale right now, and I’ve already got pretty high demand of partners that want to be added to the program,” says Tom Evans, the vendor’s vice president of worldwide channel sales.

Helping managed service providers go to market together is one of several ways Palo Alto is looking to deepen engagement with the MSP community.

“It’s very strategic to us,” Evans says. “We continue to evolve things that are enabling our managed service partners by launching new specializations and new proficiencies so that they can do managed services within all of our product family.”

Evans expects to introduce new training programs for MSPs and new sales incentives during Palo Alto’s 2024 fiscal year, which begins in August.

The company’s increased interest in MSPs is closely linked to an equally strategic interest in growing market share among SMBs. “There’s definitely a concerted effort on our part to go after that market and go after that partner base and embrace those partners where they may not be historically the same partners that we’ve used,” Evans says.

Another manifestation of that campaign, he adds, is the recent addition of a new level for SMB partners, largely managed on Palo Alto’s behalf by distributors, within the vendor’s NextWave partner program.