Sonicwall has been both a shining star and an enigma in the I.T. world for as far back as I can recall working on their specialty product–the corporate firewall. They’re a star because their products are cheap, reliable, consistent, and performance-oriented. They’re also a star because their reseller program has been one of the keys to their success–and it has allowed them to be considered a competitor in the true enterprise space. They out-price Checkpoint, Fortigate, and Cisco, outsell Watchguard, and simply run circles around Microsoft Forefront.
What makes Sonicwall an enigma is their choice of Dell as acquisition suitor. (Dell is acquiring Sonicwall.) There are so many mismatches I don’t even know where to start. While they both fit the economy pricing model, that’s about the only similarity. For starters, Dell has tried and failed on many occasions in the networking space, and persists by rebranding the Netgear form factor in switches and managed switches–which very few people buy because of their poor dependability. Sonicwall, on the other hand, dominates the low-end firewall market.
This would seem to do nothing for Dell’s two weakest product areas: enterprise networking and the high-end firewall. Still, this seeming round-hole-square-peg situation gives us a clue as to what Dell is doing: adding revenue $200 million/year at a time. (Dell’s revenue is somewhat higher that that…)
The other big mismatch is in support. Dell’s foreign-based call-in engineering support is, most would agree, awful, slow, and tedious. Requisitions for replacement parts are delivered by unreliable third parties, and this frustrating protocol for on-site service is the teeth behind Dell’s famous three-year manufacturer warranty on PCs. Sonicwall’s support on the other hand, is reputable, quick, and stateside. So for us Americans, we see the writing on the wall. If you’re an end-user, you might not care, but as a systems engineer who has to deal with the stuff every week, sitting on hold with Pakistan gets tiresome in a hurry. Maybe Dell will learn from Sonicwall instead of forcing them to confirm with Dell’s charming, linguistically-difficult support program.
Perhaps the most difficult integration concern with this acquisition is the two companies’ attitudes towards the reseller channel. Namely, Sonicwall loves the channel and Dell just gives it lip service. Sonicwall uses real distributors, while Dell insists on inconsistently pricing every single deal through at least three different business units who are all vying for the reseller business: PartnerDirect (horrible name, their discounts are the same as the public Dell.com store); Medium/Large business (better discounts, slow quote turnaround), and the nefariously-named, oft-referenced but mysteriously incognito “Dell Reseller Division”, whose state of existence seems to reverse from one quarter to the next.
Dell could learn a thing or two from Sonicwall by standardizing system configurations and offering them into wholesale at a price that actually compels resellers to go out and sell Dell instead of HP, whose competing products are more expensive and less serviceable, but whose products also earn more for the reseller channel.
My company is partners with all three companies I mentioned, and while dealing withDell is a huge pain, the serviceability of their equipment is unmatched by anybody on the market today. Let’s hope that they can take the positives from Sonicwall–good support, a real reseller channel, and a quality value-oriented product–and integrate them into their daily business.
