From Firewalls to Full Security Suite: SonicWall’s Evolution with Bob VanKirk

Hey, everyone. Welcome back here to Techstrong tv. I'm really happy to have my friend Bob Van Kirk returning.

For those who don't know, Bob is the, uh, president and CEO of SonicWall. And you know, we've got a, we're going to do some, some image enhancement here around SonicWall because I'm, I'm sure that most of you out there don't, you've heard of SonicWall and you think you know SonicWall, but you don't know the new SonicWall. First, let me introduce Bob.

Bob, a pleasure to have you back on again. I hope all is well in your world, Alan, uh, it's a pleasure to be back talking with you, spending time with you today. Thanks so much.

Great. So, Bob, let's just, before we jump into SonicWall, the new SonicWall, let's talk a little bit about Bob Van. Bob Van Ker.

How long have you been president and CEO over here? And kind of give us kind of your journey a bit. Yeah, great.

So actually coming up on three years zone, um, so as, as president and CEO with SonicWall now over eight years. And then, um, you know, as, as far as my time in, uh, cybersecurity, oh, gosh, uh, coming up on 25 to 30 years. So, uh, yeah, I'll go ahead and admit it, but, uh, um, there, but we Didn't call it cyber event indicator, Did we?

There's, but, uh, yeah, yeah. Love the space and, uh, have been in the, the cybersecurity area for now quite some time. Yeah.

It's an exciting place to be and, and, uh, um, love the opportunity. It continues to be, continues to be. So, Bob, as I mentioned, a lot of people, you know, they think sonic Wall, they think red boxes, firewalls, right?

And, and that's what SonicWall is. But of course, you know, back then we didn't even call it cybersecurity. We called it information security InfoSec, right?

And that's where SonicWalls, red Wall, red box firewalls were, you know, initiated information security has become cybersecurity, right? And SonicWall is no longer just pretty red boxes doing firewalling, right? It, talk to us about the new SonicWall, if you will.

Yeah. Um, great question, Alan. And, uh, we've been around now 34 years, um, which is, was, you know, that, that's pretty amazing in and of itself.

And I, I like so many of the team members, I, I am very proud of our legacy. Um, to your point, we, we grew up relative to, you know, some, some, you know, first mover capabilities around firewalls and Deepak and inspection. Um, but, you know, proud of that.

But, but really exciting is, is where we have gone and, and honestly gone over the recent, you know, two to three years, Alan, um, coming into this role, you know, and, and talking with our owners, talking with the board, um, it, it was clear that, you know, while firewalls still play a role, um, relative to an organization's, um, cybersecurity posture and, and, you know, a a key layer of, of, you know, multiple layers of, of security, it became clear that we needed to, to transform. And we did just that. In fact, all aspects of of SonicWall have gone through a dramatic transformation.

Everything from, you know, our sales organization, our engineering team, our product management support, how we transact with our, our partners, you know, moving more and more towards monthly versus, you know, one, three or five years upfront. But we flipped the company upside down and for the better. Um, we have moved now, um, towards cloud native capabilities.

So away from traditional S-S-L-V-P-N to zero trust network access, we have moved, um, from just the firewall capability to managed security services. Um, we've moved from, you know, thinking that Alan, you have to standardize on SonicWall to us actually meeting our partners and, you know, specifically our MSPs and MSPs where they are on their journey. And instead of saying, Hey, you have to use this specific, whether it be endpoint cloud capability or firewall, we will actually manage an endpoint that is, you know, non, uh, SonicWall.

In fact, we support half a dozen nons SonicWall endpoints all around meeting our partners where they are and ensuring that, that we are supporting our partners and their customers relative to adding the, the most value from a security services standpoint. So, um, again, a pretty significant transformation just in a few years. Um, or inorganic.

We did three, three acquisitions in four months, um, after not having done an acquisition in, in 15 years. And then, you know, relative to how we're working with our partners early on, we, we, um, really, you know, decide to go to market a hundred percent through our, our partners. And, um, one thing we, we've really taken this relentless focus on our partners.

So we've redone our partner program, we've redone our support, um, programs such that if you're a partner, you can get support, um, within seconds. Um, we, as I said, we've changed how we're transacting with our partners, allowing them to move to monthly billing versus, again, multiple years upfront. So, um, we, we really have, um, changed quite a bit.

Um, our biggest challenge is many people still know us as the old firewall, uh, company, but you know, what's really exciting and credit to the team for this, Alan, um, just based upon those fundamental changes, the new capabilities and positioning, you know, a platform of solutions and taking an agnostic approach, um, we're seeing in incredible, uh, growth stats relative to those new areas, double, triple, quadruple digit growth. And again, um, couldn't be more excited. Fantastic.

And that, that is heartening. And you know, Bob, look, part of it is, part of it is somewhat of a rising tide, you know, raising all the boats because this is where the tides are running, right? Towards some of the, the, uh, areas that you, you mentioned.

One is, is, is is quite frankly, that I see, 'cause like you we're, we're contemporaries, right? From a experience, age point of view, you know, the shift to what I call resilience from just not just pure prevention, but resilience, right? The ability to say, Hey, something's gonna happen.

Yeah, right? We're gonna have an incident. And it, and it may not, frankly, it may not just be a cybersecurity incident.

It could be, you know, issues around data sovereignty and, and governance risk and compliance, you know, uh, big, big things going on there. Uh, the whole, as you mentioned, we live in a world where, you know, consistently endpoint, now, I don't mean endpoints like endpoint computers, but end user customers, let's call them. They don't want to be locked in.

They don't want to be dictated to what solutions or, you know, they want to use, they want to be able to use what they want, but yet they want solutions that are mallable, if you will, that are able to work with a variety of different products and solutions out there, Right? It's easy for you to say it, it's easy for me to say it. Building a product line that encompasses that and embraces that, that's a different story.

Talk to us a little bit about how, how you've accomplished this at SonicWall. Yeah. It, that, that's really, uh, insightful, Alan.

And, and one thing that has underpinned this entire transformation is what I call taking an outside in approach. Um, we have incredibly bright team members, incredibly bright engineers and, and product managers, um, sales, you know, leaders and, and reps across the board. But there is no, the, the, there's no substitute, Alan, to listening more and talking less.

And this whole effort started with get out, spend time with key partners, spend time with key customers, and you have two ears and one mouth, use 'em proportionally, ask key questions, and then shut up and listen. And, and that insight, every single function was tasked with that. That's not just product.

It's not just sales, finance, you name it. Um, and that insight is invaluable. And, and we've used that insight to shape our roadmap.

You know, it's one thing for me to say, Hey, Alan, here's our roadmap. Here's what to expect in the next 3, 6, 9 months. It's entirely different when Alan is a key MSP, right?

And Alan says, Bob, this is what I need. This is what's keeping me up at night. This is how I envision growing my business, right?

And we, we took that approach across the board. That's a journey. It's not a destination.

And that insight has really served us well. Um, that drove the, the acquisitions that we did that drove our roadmap, that drove our new partner program that provides on average, you know, at, at worst, um, the, the, um, wait time is like 32 seconds. If you are a partner in our service provider program, need help, that drove our monthly pricing it, you know, and, and, you know, so credit where credits do it.

That is so fundamental. Um, and, and when you take that approach, I've found now the, the length of my career is getting up there. You can't go wrong.

Um, you know, by, by listening, you gotta, you gotta ask the right questions, and you need to make sure you're not, you know, looking at a n of one versus, you know, what's representative across your base. But, um, that has really served us well, and that has enabled us to make some bold moves to, to add key capabilities, which capabilities lean into certain areas that it's not a bed. It, it, it is based upon key input from our partners, based on key input from our customers.

Agreed. So, Bob, look, this is, as I mentioned, I said, the rising tide. What we are talking about is a lot of these mega trends that we're seeing in, in the market, and you hearing directly from your customers, and especially from your channel partners.

But you guys recently made a major announcement around this, about kinda redefining what it means to be a cybersecurity solutions provider today, next generation kind of, uh, solutions, Right? Can you get, let's get a little concrete, let's talk about that a little bit. The new sonic wall, if we make, we love It.

Yeah. I mean, here, here's the data point for you. Over the last 30 years, any new product announcement would've been all about speeds and feeds and, you know, um, increasing to, to this level and, and doing this type of, of, you know, deep packet and inspection or inspecting encrypted traffic.

Um, and, and how we're, we're taking that to the next level. This last announcement, um, is, is, is very, very, um, key on, because we didn't come out talking, yes, we released a new lineup of firewalls. Um, but that wasn't the headline.

The headline was a, a platform of cybersecurity capabilities. Um, yes, the firewalls do provide, um, you know, increased threat protection and new, you know, key capabilities that our partners have have requested. But with every firewall, you know, we're also offering new managed services.

Now, what's interesting, you know, um, Gardner sites, something like 50 to 60% of all incidents are related to misconfigurations. Um, and, you know, even greater, 90% of, of breaches have some degree of human error. So what we did was, we, we are now folding into this, you know, new lineup of, of firewalls as well as going back to our existing level, is offering a new managed service.

That one ensures that three dozen best practices, capabilities, or settings relative to your firewall are set up correctly and maintained. And then also reviews upwards of over a hundred other settings and, and, uh, configurations all relative to just network security. And then on top of that, Alan, you get a monthly health check that confirms, okay, Alan, you know, you're on the right release.

Everything is configured, you're doing everything right Now, you know, how many MSPs, how many mid-market customers, I'd argue, how many even enterprises have their 24 by seven SOC or 365 SOC or noc that will constantly be looking at configurations, giving you health checks, ensuring that you're on supported releases. Not many. And we've heard that in spades from our, our, uh, MSPs, Hey, how can you give us what our customers need?

You talked about it, you know, the, the, the attacks are, are, uh, um, crazy, um, these days, just the sophistication, the sheer number. So how do we provide a, a, a soc, how do we provide NOx but make it in a cost effective manner for our MSPs to offer to their customers? So that's exactly what we folded into this launch.

Now, our MSPs can take that and say that it's their, you know, soc it's their knock that provides these, these services. Um, or they can say that SonicWall is supporting them, but we're providing that 24 by seven by 365 insight. And what comes with it, Alan, is pretty interesting.

Um, by using those services with every firewall, you actually get 200, uh, 200 k cyber warranty. Um, now, you know, you could say, Hey, you get a warranty, but if you don't have everything set up, you know, then, then you don't qualify. But with these services, we're insuring behind our MSPs that the end customer is keeping all their settings correct and we're giving them, you know, these monthly health checks.

So really, really, you know, important integration there. On top of that, what we've also folded into every firewall is our cloud native capability. So every time you buy a firewall, you have a cloud native, you have cloud native licenses to provide you with the latest ZTNA capability, not the, the, you know, um, S-S-L-V-P-N of the past, but, you know, a much more secure, much more efficient, greater throughput solution moving forward.

Um, and then all underpinned by our sonic platform, the ability to manage report, do analytics, ensure that you've got the data, the, the visibility to, to manage. So anyhow, that is, is, you know, how we have changed dramatically point solution in the past integrated platform of all these capabilities moving forward. I love it.

Bob. com, but where would you send them on the website to really, you know, cue in on this new, new, these new capabilities? com.

You can hit the, the homepage has means to, to get insight. We will have someone reach out to you within minutes. Um, if that's your preference, um, we have, you know, easy to follow links relative to the new capabilities.

Um, if you need a partner, we have a, a partner finder that will, you know, connect you with a local MSP or an MSP in your, you know, geography. Um, but you know, the team is, is ready to go. And again, the information's right there, um, uh, readily available to, to help anyone interested.

Love it. Bob, we're about outta time as always, man, it's a pleasure having you on here. Likewise, Alan.

Always. Alright, continued success with SonicWall. Um, look, it's a new SonicWall out there.

Go check it out for yourself and see it's an exciting time, exciting time in the cyber world. Bob. Hope to have you back on soon.

With more information, maybe we could dive a little deeper on this. Look forward to it. And thanks again, Alan.

All the best. Bob Van Kirk, president, CEO SonicWall here talking about redefining cybersecurity with the new SonicWall. We're gonna take a break.

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