Fortinet unveils FortiGate blades to slice into the high-end space

UTM vendor claims its latest move will help its channel

Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendor Fortinet has claimed that its latest foray into the high-end user space will give its channel more traction.

The firm, which also wants more partners to sell its high-end products, unveiled what it has claimed is the industry’s first multi-threat security system for 10GB Ethernet environments.

Its latest products are load-balancing switch and security blades for its FortiGate-5000 Series. The blades are deployed in the FortiGate-5020 two-slot, 5050 five-slot and 5140 14-slot chassis-based systems. They feature multi-gigabit anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, VPN and intrusion-prevention technology.

The vendor said the products are targeted at carriers, managed security service providers and large firms with bandwidth-intensive requirements.

Andre Stewart, vice-president of EMEA at Fortinet, said: “We have always been seen as a provider of very good products for the SME space, but this announcement counters that. It underlines the fact that we are not only interested in SMEs, but also in larger enterprises.”

Stewart said the product offers high margin for partners.

“Partners will be fully trained and certified,” he said. “We are serious about getting more qualified partners on board. We are looking for channel players that know how to deal with data communication issues, as well as security. We are prepared to offer attractive margins to partners that are loyal to Fortinet.”

Stewart added that the vendor is also seeing increased interest from larger system integrators and service providers.

Innes Muir, Fortinet product manager at distributor Noxs, said: “This is definitely a different area for Fortinet. It has focused on the SME and mid-sized enterprise arena for some time.

“This is going to open up new avenues for it. We have already seen some success with the bigger corporate customers, but these products are a different type of sale to the big carriers and ISPs, so it takes a different type of reseller to sell them.”

Muir added that UTM is becoming more mainstream, which means demand for Fortinet’s high-end products will pick up.

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