Sophos: Partners Poised to Benefit from Secureworks Acquisition

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

“Our partners will be able to benefit from an enhanced offering, ensuring our customers are best placed to continue to outpace and outmaneuver the adversary,” she said.

Until the close is official, it’s business as usual at each organization, Levy said.

Sam Heard, president of Data Integrity Services, a Sophos partner, said the combination of Sophos and Secureworks is a “game-changer for us.”

“With the expanded integrated technology and services, we will be able to serve a wider midmarket audience with more comprehensive solutions, while also gaining the ability to cross-sell and deepen relationships with our existing customers,” he said. “I look forward to seeing what these two like-minded, channel-first organizations bring to market for its ecosystem of partners moving forward."

Thoma Bravo’s Ambitions for Larger Sophos

Rik Turner, senior principal analyst with Omdia, which shares a parent company with Channel Futures (Informa), said what’s interesting about this Secureworks acquisition is that it suggests Thoma Bravo is prepared to "stump up the money" for the companies it owns to expand their portfolio/service offering/footprint.

“I used to think that ownership by a private equity firm was like the waiting room in the morgue, but Thoma Bravo is clearly showing that I was wrong,” he said. “My question now is what might Thoma Bravo’s ambitions be for an enlarged Sophos? An IPO still looks unlikely in the current environment in my humble opinion, so I’m wondering whether it (a) seeks a buyer within the industry or (b) simply hangs onto Sophos until market conditions improve.”

Secureworks Acquisition Makes Sense

Eric Parizo, managing principal analyst at Omdia, said Sophos’ move to acquire Secureworks is somewhat surprising given its recent history.

Omdia's Eric Parizo

“While Sophos made numerous tuck-in product acquisitions in the late 2000s and 2010s, the company’s focus shifted from growth to profit after being acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in 2019,” he said. “However, the Secureworks deal makes sense for a couple reasons. There is growing interest among cybersecurity product vendors to move into managed services. Trend Micro, BlackBerry and others, including Sophos itself, have been moving to capitalize on growing interest in service-solution hybrid offers that meet customers where they are. The acquisition of Secureworks expands and accelerates Sophos’ ability to provide a broader array of services, most notably managed extended detection and response (XDR), across a broader spectrum of industries and customer sizes.”

Additionally, the purchase comes at a reasonable cost, Parizo said.

“Secureworks has seen its fortunes decline in recent years following a series of strategy changes,” he said. “Its Taegis XDR platform, developed to be a growth engine for the company, has struggled to differentiate in a crowded marketplace. With both revenue and headcount declining steadily in the past several years, and no clear path forward, the exit was a reasonable decision to recoup value for shareholders.”