Operating at the heart of the complicated world of security, one overriding philosophy reins supreme.
“You don’t fix complexity with more complexity.”
Tackling security challenges with clarity and confidence, Ashley Wearne, General Manager Australia and New Zealand, Sophos believes the art of protecting organisations is a simple art, centred around an uncomplicated approach to safeguarding.
“At Sophos, you fix complexity with simplicity,” adds Wearne, heading a regional team renowned for network, end-user and server protection.
“In looking at the whole aspect of security today and all the different devices we have, it’s a very complex market and we think that has become a problem in itself.
“It’s allowed hackers to find holes and exploit vulnerabilities so we’re taking away the knobs and dials and making our security solutions easier for companies that don’t have the resources to solve such complexity issues. In truth, we’re unapologetically making it easier.”
Fresh from recently being positioned as a Leader in Forrester Research's new report: The Forrester Wave: Endpoint Encryption, Q1 2015, Sophos has been labelled a “breakout star” in the evaluation, which considers a vendor’s current offerings, strategy and market presence.
“We don’t protect devices and hardware, we protect the user,” Wearne explains. “The market is littered with lots of different products but if you purchase a Sophos licence, you are protected across all devices and platforms, encompassing Android, iOS and Windows.”
From network to endpoint to server security, Wearne says Sophos offers the market simplified products designed for simplified workflows.
The ideal? Businesses spend less time troubleshooting problems.
Aware that the make of organisations across New Zealand, and at a regional level, don’t all possess the luxury of housing a dedicated team of security experts, Wearne says Sophos designs products that are easy to install, configure and maintain.
Targeting businesses with five employees, all the way up to 5,000, for Wearne, who took up the role of General Manager A/NZ in August 2012, Sophos’ appeal isn’t entirely aligned with simplicity, more so the technology the company provides.
“There’s lots of smaller companies playing in the security space,” he explains. “Some are experts in mobile protection, others network and others PC etc.
“And while organisations can purchase all of these different solutions to form a more complete security solution, the crucial point to consider is that the varied technologies don’t talk to each other.
“If something is going wrong in mobile, the network may not be aware as there’s no communication.
“But we differ from other security vendors in that we offer a collective product, and that’s our point of difference.
“What we’re doing over the course of this year is getting all our products to pass information up to the cloud to provide a complete overview.
“By hosting our information in the cloud, we will be able to quickly identify problems, or potential problems across all areas of an organisation and act immediately, which is a huge game changer.”
With over 100 million users across 150 countries relying on Sophos protection against complex threats and data loss, Wearne says the company stands tall as the only vendor providing the technology to cover of aspects of an organisation, technology which will now be significantly enhanced as it moves to the cloud.
For a 15 second snapchat of what Sophos will do in 2015, click here
