SIEM market doing well in down economy 2 February, 2010 By Mark Cox

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"Our solution is a need-to-have as opposed to a nice-to-have," said Tom Turner, SVP Marketing and Channels at Q1Labs. "The SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) space is one of the fastest growing areas of the security market. C-level execs are prioritizing better analytics and we feel pretty good about what this year promises." Compliance and the need for greater visibility across networks are the key drivers.

Q1s' product is QRadar, which has e been delivering SIEM and log management since 2005. Its' target market is mid size enterprises and up to the Fortune 500.

"Unlike other products on the market, we bring in a broader set of intelligence data, especially from the network infrastructure, which SIEMs have not traditionally done," Turner said. He considers ArcSight and RSA to be the other key players in their segment of the market, and considers Q1 has a competitive advantage over them in technology.

"We are a lot more integrated than our big competitors, who have multiple products you have to bolt together," he said. "And while we don't have a magic SIEM that is automatically deployed, it does have a very high degree of automation."

Q1 was able to increase its' headcount in 2009 by 50 percent, as well as expand its' channel footprint and more than double its' OEM business (with Juniper and Enterasys being the key players there), making them poised to capitalize on a stronger economy in 2010.

"We expect it will be even bigger growth this year than last year," Turner said. "Our channel business grew 73 percent. We expanded into new geographies and added channel personnel in Europe and from our competitors in North America."

80 per cent of Q1's business now goes though partners.

In North America we have a fairly mature channel model, although we are continuing to add partners with the right mix, more strategic partners who can offer our professional services," Turner said. "We think that 80 percent will grow too. Almost everything in government goes through partners. Back in 2006 only 25 percent went through channels, so direct is the exception rather than the rule growing forward."