Blue Coat Systems has been experiencing tremendous growth in the Asia Pacific the last year, with the company increasing its headcount in the region from 15 people to around 50 and still counting. This is all in line with the company’s strategy to have a greater presence in the APAC.

The company now has nine offices throughout the APAC – the office expansion is in response to increased demand for proxy appliance solutions in that area. In the last 12 months, Blue Coat has added or expanded its offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Sydney. Blue Coat also maintains offices in Shanghai and Taipei.
“Customers worldwide are beginning to understand the power of the proxy to protect, control and accelerate their enterprise Web communications, and the Asia-Pacific region of the world is no exception,” says Matt Young, vice president of sales for Asia-Pacific. “We have rapidly expanded our presence in key geographies to meet this growing demand for proxy-based security solutions.”

A 100% channels-driven company, Blue Coat has 3 basic approaches in the region:

Talk to end-customers directly.

The company especially ensures it does this with its top 10-15 customers. This high-touch strategy is important in positioning Blue Coat’s technology.

Develop the channels.

The company is actively recruiting new channels as well as developing their sales and technical skills.

Intense marketing activities.

Blue Coat ensures that its takes part or holds at least 1 seminar every quarter in order to raise the company’s profile and visibility.

Right now, Blue Coat which has its APAC regional headquarters in Hong Kong, is looking at establishing a presence in India by March 2006. The company is also actively looking for partners in the country.

In Singapore, the company has a good mix of resellers and SIs including NERA Telecommunications, Singapore Computer Systems and Red Sentry. Its Partner Alliance Program was created to empower solution providers to cultivate and expand their core business offerings and, together with Blue Coat, meet the expressed needs of the enterprise community. Alliance members typically possess expertise in the security field, often maintaining solid relationships with complementary security vendors. However, all solution providers, regardless of technology concentration, are invited to apply for membership. The Partner Alliance Program offers two tiers of partnership levels, intended to respond to each Partner's business requirements. Partners qualify for access to each tier of the program based upon their core capabilities, commitment to collaborative practices with Blue Coat, and investment in technical training.

Authorized Partners are welcomed into the Alliance based upon their desire to sell Blue Coat products and services. They need not maintain an active service and support organization but are expected to participate in Blue Coat Systems' technical training and sales programs when offered in their region.
 

Premier Partners, generally identified as technically savvy solution providers, distinguish themselves according to their ability to add significant technical value to sales of Blue Coat products. They are expected to maintain active participation in Blue Coat Systems' technical training and sales programs. Just last week, the company announced a new certification program for administrators and other professionals to increase their knowledge and proficiency in implementing and managing Blue Coat proxy appliances. Blue Coat will offer two new courses to support the certification program: Blue Coat Certified Proxy Administrator (BCCPA) and Blue Coat Certified Proxy Professional (BCCPP). Blue Coat proxy appliances provide visibility and control of Web interactions between users and content or applications to ensure security, performance and the upholding of corporate and legal policies.

“While we provide the leading proxy for visibility and control of Web interactions, we are also committed to developing professionals who can fully take advantage of the Blue Coat platform to meet constantly growing IT challenges,” says Roberto Paschetta, manager of education services for Blue Coat Systems. “The new certification program helps create and advance professionals who can leverage Blue Coat solutions to safeguard the enterprise and optimize user-application experience.”

The classes begin on December 12, 2005, first in the U.S. and in parts of Asia, and later all around the world. Previous graduates of the Proxy Fundamentals and Advanced Proxy Solutions courses can become Blue Coat certified by enrolling in the BCCPA Upgrade course or the BCCPP Upgrade course and passing the online exam.

In addition, Blue Coat works with a fair number of technology partners who generally provide components that, when combined with Blue Coat's ProxySG secure proxy appliance, help complete an enterprise's security infrastructure. Its partners include SurfControl, Symantec, Sophos, Websense, Internet Security Systems, ALSI, Optenet, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee Security, Panda Software, Real Networks, ArcSight, LogLogic and Network Intelligence

Blue Coat, whose core business is web security announced this month, a new version of software for Spyware Interceptor, an anti-spyware appliance for small-to-medium-sized networks of up to 1,000 users. The appliance now expands protection against phishing, a security threat involving the mass distribution of “spoofed” or forged email messages, which appear to come from legitimate organizations, in an attempt to trick users into surrendering private information, such as passwords, social security numbers, personal or business credit card and other financial account information. In the aggregate, phishing is a multi-million dollar problem.

The Spyware Interceptor upgrade is the first major update to Blue Coat’s proxy appliance since the product’s original release in June 2005. Built on Blue Coat’s proven proxy technology for large enterprise networks, the anti-spyware appliance utilizes SCOPE™ (Spyware Catching Object Protection Engine), Blue Coat’s unique method of detection which optimizes ten methods of inspection to continuously protect networks and which minimizes the need for cleaning spyware, keyloggers and adware from desktops. The Spyware Interceptor appliance prevents both known and unknown forms of spyware, while allowing access to legitimate Web applications. Additionally, the appliance enables end users to view spyware-laden Web sites without becoming infected, and prevents existing spyware from fulfilling “phone home” requests.

“Phishing continues to increase in prevalence and sophistication, making it a serious threat to the corporation,” says Cindy Kelly, Vice President of Channels for Blue Coat in North America. “We have incorporated technology from our enterprise product line to solve growing security threats to small and medium-sized business. We believe our network gateway approach is more effective than other solutions such as desktop anti-spyware software that lack proactive prevention. Plus, through its lab, Blue Coat has scanned more than eight million unique Web pages—and counting—for new forms of spyware to block,” she adds.

Industry estimates indicate that 67% of all computers have some form of spyware, and as much as 25% of corporate help desk calls come from end users whose systems are overwhelmed with spyware. Dealing with spyware, including the prevention of spyware, repair of machines damaged by spyware, and loss of employee productivity, costs businesses millions of dollars per year.

According to Blue Coat, its Spyware Interceptor appliance, which is sold exclusively through its reseller and distributor network, has been extremely well-received since its introduction.
One thing that makes Blue Coat stand out is its granular policy controls (for example, sales representatives of a company might have a time quota on certain sites likes news sites). Moreover, Blue Coat also has the opportunity and ability to look at encrypted content that goes into networks.

Blue Coat stresses the point that “prevention is better than  cure” and is going all out to drive home this point - that spyware should be intercepted at the gateway and not simply cleaned up when it’s already on the desktop, when it is a lot harder to get rid of, and most of the damage is already done.

Its proxy appliances provide visibility and control of Web communications to protect against risks not just of spyware but also Web viruses, inappropriate Web surfing, instant messaging (IM), video streaming and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing – while actually improving Web performance. So far, Blue Coat has shipped more than 25,000 proxy appliances worldwide, and counting.