For SonicWall, 2024 was a key year in its much-publicized transformation from its decades-old roots as a firewall vendor into a cybersecurity company with a relentless focus on its MSSP and MSP partners.
The Milpitas, California-based company hadn’t made an acquisition for 14 years before making three deals in four months between late 2023 and early 2024, when it bought Solutions Granted, Banyan Security, and Trapmine. Much of the first half of last year was spent integrating those acquisitions to expand its offerings.
The acquisition of Solutions Granted, a master MSSP that served hundreds of MSPs with such services as security operations centers (SOCs) and managed detection and response (MDR), also brought partner-friendly financing options, including month-to-month agreements with no annual contracts or mandatory minimums.
Two months later, in January 2024, SonicWall bought Banyan, a player in the growing security service edge (SSE) space, which includes zero trust network architectures, and cloud-native capabilities. The deal gave SonicWall more offerings that MSSPs and MSPs could leverage in an increasingly remote and hybrid working environment where employees still need to access business apps via increasingly complex networks.
It was all part of the plan Bob VanKirk laid out for SonicWall’s owners – private equity firms Francisco Partners and Elliot Management – in 2022, when they asked him to replace Bill Conner as CEO.
“Early on, we just decided we have to take a relentless focus on supporting our partners, understanding where they're going, understanding their pain points, understanding what's keeping them up at night,” VanKirk – who came to SonicWall in 2017 as CMO and then rose to chief revenue offer two years later – told MSSP Alert. “How do we grow their businesses? If we position them successfully, we'll do just fine.”
First the Deals, Then the Integrations
The integration efforts began bearing fruit early.
Along with adopting Solutions Granted’s financing models, SonicWall in February launched an expanded MDR portfolio for MSPs that included its Capture Client EDR platform and Microsoft’s Defender Antivirus, with promises of managed firewalls, managed cloud security, and other services on the way. In April came SonicPlatform, a management platform for MSSPs and MSPs offering SonicWall products with a unified interface, including a console and security and health management capabilities.
It's a harbinger of things to come, he said, adding that “we will be using and leveraging APIs to better support our partners and help them back to simplicity and ease of use, helping them navigate through deployments. We're already using AI from a support standpoint, so it really does focus on our partners.”
A Cloud-Native Future
Building off the Banyan deal, SonicWall in July unveiled Cloud Secure Edge, a collection of zero trust access capabilities for MSPs to enable their customers to securely connect workers and third-parties to resources from any device and location. The vendor also integrated Banyan technologies into its SonicOS operating system.
“What that means is every firewall now comes with the Banyan cloud-native capability as core to that offering,” VanKirk said. “Every firewall. Then we focused on making that solution MSP- and MSSP-friendly.”
Most recently, SonicWall in November rolled out the TZ80, a subscription-based firewall for SMBs, branch offices and small office/home office (SOHO) environments that encapsulates what the company is trying to accomplish.
“The TZ80 is about a [small] device [that] comes with our cloud-native capabilities and comes with managed security services,” he said. “It comes with cloud-based services already on. That is what our MSPs should expect moving forward. We're not selling boxes. We're not selling you a single solution. We're selling an integrated capability and overall solution that better positions our partners and certainly their own customers.”
On an Upswing
With 2024 having ended, VanKirk and CFO Jeff Dolce said SonicWall’s transformation is making an impact. There was 700% year-over-year in its cloud-native business and double-digit growth in managed security services, VanKirk said, adding that using AI for support services has cut the response time for partners from minutes or hours to seconds.
He said partner growth in the two-plus years since he was hired as CEO has been strong.
“Where we saw for multiple years declining partner [and] transacting partner numbers, we've seen triple-digit growth,” he said. “We've had four – coming up on five – quarters in a row of growing partner [and] transacting partner numbers. Our service provider program has been growing triple digits.”
Dolce told MSSP Alert that from an overall economic standpoint, SonicWall’s performance was in line with what they told the company’s owners it would be, adding that the company grew with the market and held onto its share.
Looking to 2025
With 2024 in the rearview mirror, the SonicWall executives are turning their attention to this year. They weren’t too specific, but VanKirk said the ambition to make it easier for MSSPs and MSPs to work with the company and to continue integrating its capabilities.
“We had this arrogance in the past that we thought everyone would standardize on SonicWall,” VanKirk said. “Not the case. Let's not kid ourselves. MSPs and MSSPs have a full stack of non-SonicWall-related capabilities. You'll see continued advances.”
For his part, Dolce spoke about the kinds of services that partners will need to deliver to organizations as the cybersecurity landscape expands beyond detecting, responding to, and mitigating attacks and to such areas as regulatory compliance and insurance. SonicWall already has taken a key step in that direction, partnering with Cysurance in November to offer MSPs and MSSPs the ability to provide cybersecurity warranties for the TZ80 and other company offerings.
The warranties are available on Gen 7 firewalls and the TZ80 firewall security services that are sold and registered through the vendor or its partners after November 1, 2024. They include $100,000 for a qualifying firewall and $200,000 for a qualifying managed firewall.
“Adding cyber insurance is another thing that we're looking to expand,” he said. “We're first to the market to offer a firewall warranty through Cysurance. That's something that we're trying to address, new areas to be competitive in, and do something that that hasn't been done before.”
Dolce also noted that the more than half of SonicWall’s installed base is still using legacy hardware, representing another opportunity for the company and its partners to grow. For example, those using Gen 6 or older technologies may want to upgrade to take advantage of the warranties.
“There's a lot of opportunity for us, whether it's in the cloud business with remote access, whether it's in our main security services business, whether it's our upgrades that we see from our old-generation products,” he said.
