Networking company Enterasys is adding security appliances to its portfolio, and Gerry Carrol, head of marketing for Europe, Middle East and Africa, says the move is a natural progression of its switching and routing business.
He says the move is also in line with the demand for more flexible security solutions.
"Most businesses, because of their dispersed nature, are moving away from having a big firewall at the centre of their business, to having many smaller versions of firewalls spread throughout. The best approach to security is a tiered approach and the security appliance is the best solution to these needs."
In tandem with the security appliance market, Carrol says the concept of user-personalised networks is growing rapidly. "Companies are demanding more flexible networks."
Using user-personalised networks, it is possible to build a business policy for each user and apply that each time the network is accessed. Carrol says it is "ideal to have these systems on the edge of the network".
Africa has also been identified as a "huge opportunity" and Carrol says the company is working in conjunction with Westcon to establish a larger presence on the continent, particularly in countries such as Kenya and Nigeria, as bases of potential development for these regions.
Because of the spread of products and the lower cost of entry to users and resellers, "the opportunity for us to be successful in emerging markets is bigger than our competitors".
He says while Africa suffers from a certain amount of "technology lag" - which he puts at six to 12 months - there are not substantial differences between the European and African markets, with the result that Enterasys supplies a full range of products to the local market.
In particular, the short distance site-to-site and internal networking requirements of local business, and their buying patterns, are in line with international patterns, although Carrol adds that longer haul requirements are different because of the lack of infrastructure in many African countries.
Wireless technology, such as 802.11x, says Carrol, is "not a big revenue opportunity" in isolation but is an important part of the "overall Enterasys solution offering".
The core business of the company remains the switching and high-speed routing portion, he says, with security, access technology and network management accounting for a growing slice of the pie.
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