Sophos: Partners Poised to Benefit from Secureworks Acquisition
Both Sophos and Secureworks are "channel-first" companies.
Sophos partners will gain new opportunities from the company’s $859 million acquisition of Secureworks from Dell Technologies.
That’s according to Joe Levy, Sophos’ CEO. The acquisition should close in early 2025, subject to customary closing conditions.
Sophos is backed by private-equity firm Thoma Bravo, whose portfolio also includes Exabeam, Darktrace and many more technology companies. Dell owns approximately 83% of Secureworks' total outstanding shares of common stock.
“Sophos and Secureworks are both channel-first companies — a synergy that will help us expand and integrate our respective strengths to scale further and faster,” Levy said. “This will create new opportunities for our partners because of the expanded integrated technology and services they will be able to sell – either to new customers at any sized organization or vertical – or as a strategic upsell and cross-sell motion to provide stronger cybersecurity.”
Sophos Partners to Provide Stronger Cybersecurity
The acquisition advances Sophos’ goal of helping under-protected organizations improve their security posture, Levy said.
“Our aim is to provide these organizations with the combination of technology and services to level the playing field against cyberattacks driven by a thriving cybercriminal ecosystem and geopolitical pressures,” he said. “Together, Sophos and Secureworks will continue to work with our worldwide channel partners to ensure our customers have better cybersecurity outcomes.”
Sophos already has more than 600,000 customers worldwide, Levy said.
“The acquisition of Secureworks is going to strengthen our security operations services – for both customers that need additional help augmenting their in-house security operations center (SOC) or need a fully managed service – either one – for small, midmarket or enterprise-size organizations – in any vertical,” he said.
Broader, Stronger Cybersecurity Portfolio
The acquisition provides an opportunity for Sophos to integrate solutions from both companies into a broader and stronger security portfolio that Sophos partners, MSPs and MSSPs provide to their customers of all sizes to combat cyberattackers, Levy said.
“Specifically, this is going to strengthen the security operations services partners can leverage for their customers that need additional help augmenting in-house SOCs or need a fully managed service,” he said. “Partners will also be able to provide an expanded Sophos portfolio of new offerings to customers, such as identity detection and response, next-gen security information and event management (SIEM) capabilities, operational technology (OT) security and enhanced vulnerability risk prioritization.”
The opportunity is clear between Sophos and Secureworks, said Wendy Thomas, Secureworks’ CEO.
“We both want to help organizations strengthen their security posture and turn the tide against the adversary,” she said. “This acquisition makes it possible to provide organizations with a trusted partner to tackle their cybersecurity threats.”
Similar Go-To-Market Strategies
Both Secureworks and Sophos have similar go-to-market strategies, leading with a partner-first-centric approach to strengthen the overall cybersecurity community, Thomas said.
Secureworks' Wendy Thomas