Evidence of this convergence abounds. Security software vendors are lined up to port their wares to network infrastructure platforms from companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Juniper Networks and F5 Networks. The latest example is the coupling of the Firemon firewall and network management platform with BIG-IP switches from F5 Networks.

As IT organizations ponder their options for the next generation of networking, many of them are insisting that security functions come baked in with the gear. This creates disruption and, in some cases opportunities for solution providers such as M&S Technologies in Dallas that is leveraging its relationship with both Secure Passage and F5 Networks to expand its potential base of customers for both offerings, said Mark Miller, a company partner.

There will always be the need for security services as practice, but how security technologies get delivered to the enterprise is undergoing a major transformation that will challenge solution providers to adopt to some new market realties in the days and months ahead.

We tested the appliance on a small network in February 2010.

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But at the same time, interest in increasing the productivity of the existing workforce through the better use of IT is on the rise. The question is how can solution providers best leverage unified communications to meet the needs of customers while simultaneously advancing their own business goals? The answer to that question is to start thinking more like a carrier that is delivering set of services that have been customized for a specific customer.

We all know that every major carrier is looking to expand their footprint in unified communications. But the issue these big carriers will have over time is their inability to customize these services. As unified communications evolve in the enterprise, customers are going to want to see these services delivered inside the applications they use every day. That creates an opportunity for solution providers to provide custom unified communication services as a managed service to the customer.

To pull that off, however, solution providers are going to need to deploy a suite of products based in industry standards such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) that by definition creates an open architecture. For example, it’s the maturity of SIP that enabled Siemens to replace Tandberg with Polycom as its preferred partner for the video conferencing component of the OpenScape unified communications platform. That same approach has also allowed Siemens to make a case for layering its software in on top of existing Nortel infrastructure rather than just assuming those customers will become customers of Avaya in the wake of the latter company buying the enteprise assets of Nortel, said Michael Garland, head of the North America channel for Siemens Enterprise Networks.

As time goes on, SIP will be extended to integrate with a host of service-oriented architecture (SOA) services, as promised this week separately by Avaya and IBM, that will allow unified communications to be delivered seamlessly across public and private cloud computing implementations.

In the meantime, unified communications represents one of the best opportunities for solution providers to inset themselves inside the business processes of their customers. And as we’ve said before, whoever controls the business process controls the customer.

But while the Nexus One smartphone essentially adds another supplier of phones made by HTC, the Google smartphone is still tethered to wireless networks from T-Mobile and, shortly thereafter, Verizon. Oddly enough, the Nexus One smartphone doesn’t work on 3G networks from AT&T, which just happen to be the preferred wireless network for the Apple iPhone.

From a channel perspective, the ideal situation would be to have open carrier networks that could work with any smartphone. But it would literally take an Act of Congress to make that happen. So while the Google Nexus One is a step in the right direction because it at least provides an open source platform for building mobile applications, it’s hardly represents a revolution.

Perhaps one day, Google will build out its own wireless network and then open that network to any and all device makers. That would roughly result in a smartphone market that would be roughly akin to the open approach that created the PC marketplace.

But until that happens, solution providers and their customers are going to be held hostage by carriers. And the price of that closed-minded approach is not only higher costs for consumers, but a lack of innovation that limits to the mobile application space to penny-ante developers of 99 cent applications that most people get bored with an about an hour.

In the meantime, the development of business-class applications for smartphones suffers because the carriers that control the network are just too difficult to do business with, which largely stems from a bunker mentality dedicated to protecting a franchise rather than thinking about how to better exploit it.

Now comes along a more modular approach in the form of a Tandberg T3 Custom Edition, which gives solution providers in the channel access to the core components that make up a Tandberg telepresence system without having to commit to using the same displays and furniture that Tandberg uses in its standard product line.

In recent months, Tandberg, Polycom and Mitel have all been making a concerted effort to battle Cisco for dominance of this emerging market. Of course, Cisco is making a play to acquire Tandberg, so it remains to be seen what will ultimately happen to Tandberg.

But as the spectrum of high definition video offerings continues to reach all the way from the desktop to fully-immersive room experiences, the opportunity for the channel continues to grow. Right now, the economy is clearly holding back major IT investments in telepresence, but even now you can see more of these system being used in a variety of conference room settings. That means it’s only a matter of time before these system go mainstream, especially on the desktop where integration with existing systems management tools is the next barrier about to be overcome.

Version 1.5.1
Price: $19,500 for appliance model

http://www.mcafee.com/us/local_content/datasheets/ds_fw_profiler.pdf

Data Security Tools: As the focus on security has shifted from the perimeter, solution providers are finding success with a wide range of security tools focused on securing data rather than access to the network.

Data Storage: No matter the state of the economy, demand for more storage space keeps growing. And until storage virtualization goes mainstream, there is still plenty of opportunity to sell storage arrays.

Business Intelligence: There are a lot of tools in this category, but the reason companies buy them is the same. After years of investing in packaged applications, customers are anxious to show value for those investments by presenting users with actionable information.

Smartphones: There’s not much money to be made on the sale of the smartphone itself. But a new generation of mobile applications is creating opportunity for the channel.

Cloud Computing: It’s still early days as far as the channel is concerned. But the convergence of cloud computing and managed services does create a lower cost model for delivering IT services.

802.11n Wireless Networks: Increased bandwidth, lower costs and fewer headaches are a combination that most customers can’t ignore no matter how bad the economy is.

Appliance Consolidation: All those devices at the edge of the network are now ripe for consolidation as customers have become concerned about the total cost of managing them all.

Virtualization Sprawl: In the back half of the year, customers have discovered that not only do they need virtual machine management tools, but that left to their own devices virtual machines will suck up all the memory they can find unless properly managed.

Application Acceleration: Short of a full network upgrade, the best thing for a slow network is a set of application acceleration appliances that offload high bandwidth or low latency applications.

Desktop Virtualization: Starting with a conversation about Windows 7 and aging hardware, solution providers are starting to discover that customers are rethinking their entire approach to managing the desktop.

Even in the worst of times, there is always opportunity in the channel if you just know where to look.