The Ashimmy Blog

Is Lawrence Orans the NAC Boy Who Cried Wolf?

OK I have to admit it. I downright laughed when I read Ellen Messmer’s article this morning in Network World about BYOD ushering in a revival of the NAC market. Really? Really? After I stopped laughing, I read some more.

Well it seems that Forescout has trotted out Gartner’s Prince of NAC, Lawrence Orans to proclaim that “BYOD is an unstoppable trend”. Of course this unstoppable trend will combine with that immovable force, NAC and finally all of those lofty numbers that Larry and the rest of the analysts made all of those years ago will be realized. Come on Larry. You are acting like the boy who cried wolf of NAC. Give it up.

Hey it takes a big man to admit he was wrong. God knows I am big, but I don’t admit I was wrong that often. But lets face it, who more than me was selling that NAC lemonade for all of that time.  But we all know how it went. As Larry says to Ellen, “NAC has been around for almost 10 years," says Gartner analyst Lawrence Orans, who acknowledges the "first wave" of NAC crested with a fairly modest adoption, mainly by financial institutions and some high-security situations, plus a few universities.” Fairly modest? How about pretty low.

Yeah, I remember those days well. Companies like Lockdown Networks, ConSentry, Vernier and so many others that I don’t even remember the names. Chasing that dream of widespread NAC adoption.  Of course Bradford Networks is still around having gone through several (OK a lot of) different business models. StillSecure still offers NAC though I think primarily to the Fed/DoD space, they are much more focused on MSSP and cloud. To be fair, Forescout has done a bang up job of being the last independent standing. Cisco and Juniper offer NAC as part of the network, as does HP. McAfee has some sort of NAC built into the ubersuite still I believe.

But really to think that BYOD is going to make NAC hot again?  The idea seems to be simple (it is always a simple idea with NAC, doing it is hard); we will recognize you as a private BYOD device. We will put you in some sort of quasi-guest network where you don’t get full access to all of the corporate LAN. So you don’t feel threatened we have the ability to make sure the corporate overloads don’t see all of the juicy personal stuff on your device (like they want to).  Of course you believe the corporate overloads don’t you? And this will make us all fly out and buy NAC?

I don’t think so, sorry Larry, Ellen and Forescout.  I don’t think there is anything that will ever make NAC  live up to the numbers that Gartner and others foretold all those years ago.

Are you profitable yet?

Another Gartner show wrapped up and another slew of how great we are press releases by my friends at Forescout. They put out their obligatory “another record quarter” press release yesterday. They followed that by putting out another release that they are in the visionary quadrant of the Gartner MQ again.  I wonder what it will take to move them into the leader quadrant?

I thought it was interesting though that in both releases they noted that Gartner claims the NAC market actually shrunk by 10% last year and will remain flat this year. When the whole market is only 200m, that isn’t exactly a rousing metric to dwell on.

But a few things were left out. One was a quote from Joel Snyder in his recent NAC review. So in case you wanted to see it, here is what Joel says:

One of the biggest concerns we had in testing CounterACT is scalability. Since the appliances have to watch all network traffic (or at least a good portion of it) to detect and classify devices, this means that you have to find good places in the network where mirroring is both possible and at the right speed.

In large networks, particularly very distributed ones with a high level of redundancy, this can be difficult or costly, requiring many appliances. In addition, CounterACT does much of its magic by connecting to network devices and reconfiguring them on the fly, something many network managers will find uncomfortable.

But the biggest thing missing is one word: Profitability. With all of this amazing growth every quarter, how can the company still not be profitable?

So congratulations on another fantastic quarter. Let us know when you are are fabulous and profitable.

Joel Snyder’s Dirty Dozen

Last month I wrote about an article Joel Snyder had over at Network World on NAC: What went wrong. As I said in my article, Joel is not one to mince words and certainly knows the NAC market very well.  I thought it was a great article (his not mine ;-) )

Anyway, that article was a prelude to a full out test and review of some of the leading NAC products still out in the market today.  Joel and InfoWorld have now published their reviews.  Called the Ultimate Guide to Network Access Control Products, it is a great in depth look at what is out there. While in typical Joel fashion he doesn’t sugar coat anything, I think he actually went easy on a few of products in regard to their cons.  However, as reviews go, this is one of the more even handed, real world and frank ones you will read. If you are interested in NAC, I consider it a must read.

There is also a great slide show summary to look at (sorry it is not embeddable) here.

My biggest surprise was that Joel actually found 12 NAC products to test. Usually some vendors will bow out of a review, especially a Joel Snyder review. On top of that I wasn’t sure there were 12 NAC vendors left.  But there they are, Joel’s Dirty Dozen.

Nice work to Joel and team and must reading for NAC people.

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How Cisco’s infighting put customers last and almost killed the NAC Market

Image of Joel Snyder

Now that I am fairly removed from the NAC market, I can look at things with a bit of perspective.  For years and years I would rant on about how Cisco was the worst/best thing that ever happened to NAC.  I used to say they had a schizophrenic NAC strategy.  Many thought I was just being a vendor protecting my company’s ass-ets.

That is why I am particularly glad to see Joel Snyder lay the big stick on Cisco in his article in ComputerWorld (might have been InfoWorld first). Joel is never one to mince words and he doesn’t in this instance either. He makes no bones talking about Cisco’s dual NAC strategy and how it resulted in at the very least mixed messages. Joel talks about how the Perfigo/Clean Access/ NAC appliance team at Cisco was at loggerheads with the original Cisco NAC framework team. How they refused to join in the industry wide NAC standards movement until finally acceding to the IETF standard, which for all intents and purposes was the same as the Trusted Computing Group. How the Cisco NAC framework was not really ever that different from the TCG’s to begin with. But heaven forbid Cisco would tell their customers that. Instead they were kept in the dark and fed sales manure like mushrooms.

But let me go one step further. As I said Cisco in some ways was the best thing that ever happened to NAC. They beat the NAC drum so loud back in 2005 and 2006 that they created a frenzy around it. It resulted in a NAC gold rush, which again at least partially thanks to Cisco never happened. But who were the biggest losers in Cisco’s internal NAC fights? Their own NAC customers were the biggest losers. Other losers included anyone looking for a NAC solution over the last 5 years. Another category of losers was the NAC start ups who burned through their VCs cash, while Cisco froze the market and delivered a sub-par product.

Lets look at each of these losers:

1. Cisco customers – How many Cisco network customers were fed the NAC is in the network message. How many bought it hook, line and sinker? They upgraded their networks to the latest versions, installed ACS, went through step 1-10 and then were told to go back to go and don’t collect 200 dollars because now they needed Clean Access. Once they installed Clean Access it didn’t work as advertised and the supposed “Cisco only” integration wasn’t there either.  Many of these customers wasted lots of money and eventually chose another NAC solution anyway.

2. Customers looking for NAC but waiting on Cisco – How many potential NAC customers sat on their hands waiting for the standards to clear up, for Cisco to speak with one voice and deliver a NAC product that worked.  When you control 75% of the network market you can do things like that. Of course with another administration in place, some may use the “M” word to describe it.  But for too many potential NAC engagements Cisco froze them out of making a decision.  Cisco NAC was too expensive, too hard, did not work the way they needed it too. They held up having a standard in place. As a result the window of opportunity for these organizations passed.  They may eventually implement NAC anyway, but Cisco put them on ice, intentionally or not.

3. NAC start up companies and the VCs who invested in them. ConSentry Networks, Nevis Networks, Lockdown Networks, Mirage Networks, etc, etc.  How many companies burned through how many millions of dollars on NAC. Cisco has to bear at least partial responsibility. By using their dominant market condition and not caring about what was best for their customers, they froze these companies out of the market.

Joel is right on. Once they had done their best to kill off the NAC market and the start ups in it, they “turned down” the NAC marketing.  If I were a customer sitting on tens of thousands of dollars of NAC equipment right now, I don’t think I would be too happy with my local Cisco rep.

But let that be a lesson. When dealing with companies like this, the customer may not always come first.

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An interesting take on NAC branding

Image via Wikipedia

Saying that selling NAC has proven more difficult than many had anticipated would be an understatement. But a recent article I read sheds a whole new light on what some companies are doing to sell their NAC products.

Recently Fordham University had an article in their newspaper, The RAM. It details how the school is going to join a growing list that is switching to Gmail for their students and giving them a lifetime email box. In the same article, they noted that Fordham will be replacing their current Cisco Clean Access NAC install with something called Fordham NAC.

Now replacing Cisco’s NAC is not exactly a novel idea. Again Fordham is joining a long list of educational institutions to do so. In fact the article gives some good reasons why they are dumping the Cisco product. But what is interesting, is what the heck is Fordham NAC?

At first I thought it may be some kind of home grown,perhaps open source NAC system. But no, that is not the case.  Fordham NAC according to the article is “created by a company called Trustwave.”

So it must be the old Mirage product that Trustwave is still selling as a product. I remember there was talk of them converting that to a managed service, but maybe not. But product or service, why are they branding it Fordham NAC?

Is it a new version that will be branded Fordham always? Will other colleges look kindly to using Fordham NAC? Can you imagine if the customer was the NY Yankees. Would Trustwave even have a chance of selling Yankee NAC to the Red Sox?

No, rebranding its NAC product Fordham NAC doesn’t make sense.  Maybe because Trustwave does not really value selling NAC as a product, they are not interested in building any brand value in it. As such, whoever buys the product gets to call it their brand.  Sounds pretty silly to me. But who knows.

What I do know, is that this is not the first time I have seen some odd stuff coming out of Trustwave. I have also heard grumblings from ex-employees there as well.  Maybe things are not all they seem?  I don’t know, I am just sayin’

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For Forescout its about the profits, not the product Bryan

A few weeks ago I took exception to the usual pre-RSA press releases touting “another record breaking year” by several NAC vendors. First I called out one of my favorite whipping boys (there I admit it), Forescout and then I did the same with Bradford Networks.

My reasons for this were several. First of all private companies touting record revenues without actually giving numbers is meaningless hyperbole or even worse BS. Secondly, in today’s economic conditions, its the bottom line that counts baby. If you are not profitable, people are going to question your viability. That isn’t my rule, that is the way of the world. No where in either of the two releases I called out was a hint of the word profitability. Therefore, I have to assume neither are profitable. That is an important yardstick when even on orders for a few thousand dollars customers are asking for vendors financials.

Further in a market that the analysts are unanimous in saying shrunk this past year, the fact that both of these companies grew by roughly the same large amount of customers is just a little stinky, don’t ya think?

But let me be clear. It has nothing to do with whether or not the products are any good or not. In fact I think Forescout has made a ton of progress over the last two years in improving the product. I also like the direction that Bradford is taking, away from a pure NAC message. I was strictly speaking about stupid marketing tricks and how it makes the company look foolish.

However, it seems to have set off a bit of a comment war. Eric Irvin who is a regular reader of my blog made a few comments and now Bryan Marlatt, Director of Engineering at Forescout has responded. Rather than leave these excellent comments to the side show of comments on old posts, I thought I would give them both the bright lights of center stage along with my response. So here are the comments in question:

Eric Irvin· 2 weeks ago

I think the big problem with Forescout, is a lack of market identity and swagger. When I was shopping NAC for a very large health organization, we met with Forescout, Symantec, and a few others. There was nothing that really sold us on their SEs and Sales guys really being passionate about their product, or feeling they were the market leader that could do x, y, and z better than anyone else. In the end, you want a product that works and isn't that expensive. We never found out if it worked or not, because we were unsure if they would still be in business in a year or two. The NAC providers change so much from year, to year, when you see depressed sales people, either the company is tanking, or a merger is being worked out, from my experience. :)

3 replies · active 2 weeks ago

alan shimel 2 weeks ago

Eric, you are right passion on the part of sales people and other employees is a good indicator of what is going (on) usually. Forescout is not the only company guilty of this. I do know they have had some changes at sales and other personnel. The NAC market remains very liquid. Thanks for commenting!

Bryan Marlatt· 3 hours ago

While I enjoy reading Alan's blog, I find it always to be a bashing towards ForeScout. I find it interesting that you feel the need to beat up ForeScout just because your past employer's product is failing in the NAC market. I have enjoyed speaking with you at in ATL airport and past conferences. I think we've had some good conversations. I think it would be more beneficial for you to have discussions about competing products and not just try to crush them.
In regards to Eric's message above. I'll have you and your readers know that I was the engineer that presented to Eric and his team. I found it odd to read Eric's message above when he quickly invited me to connect with him on LinkedIn after the conversation we had. I'm one of the biggest proponents of the ForeScout CounterACT NAC solution. While I feel it important to explain the major differences between CounterACT and the competition in the NAC market, I don't feel the importance of 'bashing' the competition. I think the CounterACT stands on it's own merits.
I think it says something that every other vendor out there is working to push customers away from ForeScout. ForeScout has a product to be reckoned with and I think our competitors feel the pain when losing so often to ForeScout. I welcome any conversation you wish to have with me or ForeScout to "DISCUSS" the CounterACT NAC solution.
Bryan Marlatt
Director of Engineering
bmarlatt@forescout.com
404-242-0144

Eric Irvin· 3 hours ago

Bryan, you are right, I was excited to meet with you, and think you are an excellent resource for ForeScout. I still stand by my words, I never felt the swagger and general excitement about how ForeScout approached NAC. In comparison to some of the other vendors we observed, Symantec, and Cisco specifically, ForeScout brought more to the table in terms of the technology working without requiring a huge investment in software deployment, or hardware repurchasing. The hardsell for us was, our senior leadership was nervous about NAC. NAC has a bad reputation for causing more problems than is solves. If you recall our conversation, Bryan, you will remember I told you this. NAC also has a blackeye because each year, the Gartner report on NAC loses a handful of companies, and gains a few more.
Also, to be fair, one of the biggest reasons I felt this way, was because we also got the impression that Bryan was an army of one. I hope you take that as a compliment more than anything. When you see the Director of Engineering selling you the product, and you hear most of your engineering-related problems would be solved by the DoE, you are excited about the attention, but you also wonder if the Director is the team.
That said, I think Bryan may have a point... Alan should consider interviewing Bryan on the blog, and give him his chance to address the direction of ForeScout, and their future plans.

So Bryan you raise some points and let me respond. I can’t talk for Eric though and will let his comments stand on their own.

Bryan I don’t beat up Forescout because my former employers product is failing in the NAC market. I don’t know if it is failing first of all. But I have been beating up Forescout for a long time :-)  But as I said earlier, it is not the product (or the director of engineering) I have a problem with. It is sleazy marketing schtick that I have called out again and again over the years that I bash.

I don’t want to crush a competitors product. First of all I am not a competitor. Second of all as I have written, I am not a big fan of stand alone NAC companies at this point. I think like Gartner has been saying for years, it is increasingly difficult for a stand alone NAC vendor like Forescout or StillSecure for that matter, to compete with Cisco, Juniper, Symantec, McAfee, Microsoft and the rest who are bundling NAC with their product line. That is why most of the NAC companies have been changing the message to say they are more than NAC.

Bryan I admire your pride and passion for your company. So let me break this to you gently. There are tons of deals that are going to Cisco and Symantec that you are never even in the game on. Eric is referring to this when he talks about the execs in his company being nervous. Forescout not being profitable is a reason for nervousness today. Nothing against the product itself, its the financials.

As to bashing competitors, Bryan not blaming you, but you know as well as I do that certain sales team members at Forescout used to dedicate major portions of their powerpoint slides bashing the competition. I have seen the slides, so lets not go there.

I would be happy to have you on a podcast in the future if you like to talk about NAC. Make sure it is OK with Gord and the crew and let me know.

Eric as usual you make some excellent points. I can understand the attitude towards choosing a NAC and if you do, going with a bigger company. Thanks for reading the blog and being a fan!

I guess with NAC, someone is sneaking it in?

So now Bradford Networks has joined Forescout in putting out the pre-RSA what a great year press release. Again without giving specific numbers, Bradford claims 30% revenue growth year over year. They also claim to have added “more than 150” new customers.

Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that Forescout said they added 150 new customers exactly last year? Is it a case of mine is bigger than yours in the NAC space.

What I find really puzzling is that when you speak to the analysts it was a rather flat year for NAC, especially the stand alone appliances that Bradford and Forescout sell.  So with both of them claiming record numbers, without giving out actual numbers, what should we believe?

Is someone sneaking NAC into the network and not telling us? Are we seeing NAC hype? Unheard of I know. But what the hay, it gives me a chance to write about NAC a little bit, so what is a few record years among friends.

What's missing? Profitability

Forescout released its annual things are great, another record setting year release today. Just in time for RSA and the press briefings they have scheduled I am sure. I have written about this kind of thing in the past.

To be fair Forescout talked about how many new customers they added (they claim 150), about how big Frost and Sullivan says the NAC market will be in 2015 (295m. What a fall from the billion dollar market called for by 2011) and that they are second to Cisco in the market (highly debatable). But no mention of record revenues.

But what is the most important not mentioned? Profits. Revenue is great, but when you are a 12 year old company, profitability is kind of required. Gord, you really want to impress me announce that you have achieved profitability and are not burning money every month.

Illena Armstrong responds

Last year (OK it was just a week or so ago) I wrote a post about SC Magazine Labs and their recent coverage of an OEM’ed NAC product which they were heaping accolades on as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well OK, just one of the top 20 products of the last 20 years!

As I said in that article, I have a lot of respect for the SC Magazine and the folks that run it. Illena Armstrong and staff do a great job of turning out a great product month in and month out, year after year. They have tried to be a force of good in the security market. That is why it was particularly out of character for the Veri-NAC stuff. 

I also know that Illena and others at SC Mag read my blog. I figured it was just a matter of time until someone responded. Illena responded today with a comment on the follow on article to the original post. I think it is important enough to give it center field play. Here is her response in its entirety:

For the benefit of this blog's readers, I wanted to take a moment to provide some quick facts about SC Magazine's product reviews.
Our testing methodology is published each month in the Product Reviews section of our magazine. Additionally, on our website (www.scmagazineus.com) you can find even more documents about our Group Tests, such as our FAQs, How We Test, and a sample of our submission form that vendors must fill out in order to have their products considered for inclusion in any of our monthly tests. (Just check out the Product section's "About Reviews" link.)
As background on our regularly published reviews, typically following a two- to three-month lead time, we usually include at least two Group Tests in each edition that cover particular product categories of interest to our readers. Reviews, as described on our website and in the monthly magazine, are not bake-offs. Rather, ratings of products are achieved by testing individual solutions against our standard set of criteria. To expound further, we have a general set of criteria that we expect to be met in our reviews and, with each test, we send out submission forms that provide a little bit more explanation about the criteria for the particular class of products on test at that time. So, there are some specific criteria that are peculiar to both the category and product type, which change somewhat from product group to product group.
Now, we do not generally discuss those in great detail because that would allow a vendor to “prepare” a product to perform well in the review even if it is not as good a performer in a production environment. By noting general expectations, we offer a level playing field for all group review participants to ensure fairness. As well, a product under test should reflect what a buyer would experience.
As for the vendors included in each regular Group Test, we try to cover as many appropriate products as possible. With the start of each test, we review companies whose products we've already tested and research the space to add any other companies to the list whose products may fit the topic at hand. So, we contact all the vendors that might fit a particular category being tested and also consider those who approach us directly. Some vendors may choose not to participate because of product release dates. Others, after filling out submission forms, may not meet our criteria for that particular test. In short, there are various reasons why this vendor or that one may not make it into a particular Group Test. From our perspective, however, the more the merrier.
As for the annual Innovators issue, this is not a group review edition. We look at our potential innovators from a variety of angles. First, we look for innovative technology. This very often appears in small organizations, but not always. Second, we look for innovative marketing and business practices. A neat product is not worth much if it never gets into the marketplace. Peter's pretty clear about that in his product opener: “As in previous years, my formula for selection was a mix of technical and business innovation.” And, often these innovators have carved out a very specialized market space for themselves.
Overall, when you read the full Innovators issue – our third annual one – you should get the flavor of what we were looking for and what we are trying to accomplish in this yearly offering. We're calling out those players in the market who are demonstrating innovation in their overall company missions, their corporate and strategic planning, and the products they're offering. These vendors are chosen by us -- the editorial staff -- prior to even being notified of their selection. We then conduct interviews for this annual Innovators section to get the thoughts of the company’s visionaries, not to perform the review -- a fact that is explained in the introduction.
All our reviews are objective and well-researched. Indeed, our product reviews section, other special editorial sections and various features have won accolades from the Association of Business Publication Editors over the last couple years -- another fact we've touted both in the pages of our monthly edition and on our website.
I encourage all of you to hit the SC Magazine website for accurate information about how the content for our publication and its associated properties is gathered and published. And, if you have additional questions or comments about SC Magazine, its website, its other special publications, or its live and online events, you can contact me directly by emailing me at illena.armstrong@haymarketmedia.com or by calling me at (508)278-9768.
Thank you for your time.
Illena Armstrong
Editor-in-Chief
SC Magazine

I don’t doubt or dispute anything Illena says. However, I will stick by my original assertion. SC Magazine lab personnel were very well aware that this product is an OEM of another product. They thought it was a “big deal” for the company that developed the underlying product and were helping him out. By the authors own admission, he “stopped the presses'” to add this product as an honorable mention for innovation. At the very least they had an obligation to state it was an OEM. Also explain how an OEM’ed product would result in tremendous innovation, let alone being one of the top 20 products of the last 20 years.

Illena, I seriously have the utmost respect for you and all the folks at SC Magazine. But having this product featured in 4 consecutive issues without some more disclosure around it should have raised some serious flags in your process.

The Praetorian Prefect tries to ride to the rescue and a blog fight ensues

Its been a while since I have done one of these, but lets see if I still have it. It seems Daniel Kennedy, the Praetorian Prefect (sounds like a WWE character doesn’t it? Should I be Hulk Hogan) has come to the defense of Peter Stephenson in my NAC Twilight Zone post from earlier today. The Prefect writes a rather long comment with his opinion in this matter. I could have continued this little blog tussle in the side ring of the comments section. But it is long enough, I have enough to say and damn it, its the holiday season. Lets take it to the center ring and get reaaddyy to ruumble!

To start it off here are the Prefects comments in their entirety:

Knowing Peter Stephenson, I haven't found him to be biased. I can base that on the fact that many vendors whose products are reviewed don't like his and his son's findings very much (usually a good sign of someone who's not 'in the bag'). They also have taken the time to explain their lab setup, methodology, and link the results back to both. Sounds like StillSecure might be on that list.
You've "watched a budding relationship"? Senior people at security product companies are supposed to form relationships with trade magazines, and especially those who test their products. People who don't are boneheads who shouldn't be in sales. But you talk around this fact to suggest that the reviews of the lab are biased because of this relationship. That's a bold piece of conjecture without better proof.
It looks and sounds like a pretty honest and up front operation. You get the results they found based on the environment they have and the inputs they are looking for. If they don't match the inputs you want to use for a buy decision, their findings probably won't be helpful to you. Still, the reviews are basically free, I understand what they're doing, I know their competency level, and thus this is helpful in determining players to look at in each space. Better than a quadrant anyhow.
Regarding this product, you have two entries, one from October that is the actual review, and this bizarre stub of a page in November that contains none of the regular review ratings. Sounds like a plain old clerical mistake. Picking it for the award? A little bizarre, but clearly it was fresh in everyone's mind over there (and no surprise that the most recently released product has features other products haven't had over the years). Its a little strange, but a far cry from then moving to claim that the Stephensons are publishing biased reviews.
Aren't you the guy who tackled me at a security conference because I picked up a StillSecure T-shirt?

OK, lets take this apart with my 10 reasons why Constantine was right to dissolve the Praetorian Guards:

1. Good Daniel, you know Peter too and have not found him to be biased. Has he reviewed any of your products? Have you been involved in any reviews he has done? Have you ever done any business with Peter? Was this when he worked in the lab at Norwich University or after he left and started doing consulting?

2. You are basing the fact that he must not be biased because you have heard vendors complain about his findings. Well that sounds downright scientific to me! Maybe they are bitching because they have a reason to? Maybe the fact that the testing there is a bit “out of the ordinary” yields the results that we see. Take a look at what products they choose for awards and consistently SC Mag product reviews like to choose winners “off the beaten path”.

3. They take the time to explain the methodology and lab set up you say?  Daniel what if I told you I have won best buy awards from SC Magazine lab doing a phone demo of my product and power point slides? They never actually touched the product. Would you think it was such a good set up then?  Before you run off at the mouth, you should make sure you have the facts straight.

4. StillSecure is on the list of disgruntled vendors. Wrong again my Praetorian friend. In fact StillSecure has done extremely well on SC Magazine reviews.  Just about all of our products have taken 5 stars, best buys and been finalist in reader choice awards at SC Magazine. Most recently in September I believe, our MSSP service took a best buy.  So you are very wrong on that front.  Not to mention that I don’t work at StillSecure any more. So any ax to grind from the StillSecure front is moot.

5. The relationship between Peter and a CEO of a company.  Daniel ask around the community, they will tell you I can schmooze with the best of them.  I was not referring to that type of relationship building. But I don’t want to get sued either. Yes I was vague. I am going to remain vague.  But I have my own good reasons to say what I did. The important thing is that relationship should not carry over to an OEM client without disclosure. 

6. Better than a quadrant you say. Perhaps. But Daniel that assumes the tests are what you think they are. Yes, they should be taken with a grain of salt and as I said most people think all magazine reviews (not just SC Mag) are bought and paid for anyway.

7. Daniel you say I have two entries? Go read the post again and click all the links. There is a full review in the NAC group test for October.  There is a separate “product review” in November (yes that is bizzare, but BlackBox didn’t have the product up on the website in time for the October issue). Then there is the special mention for Innovation of the year in December. (would you give an OEM of an existing product an award for innovation?) Finally there is today’s press release from BlacBox itself that Veri-NAC has been picked as one of the 20 top security products of the last 20 years by your friend at SC. A little strange? More than just a little Daniel.  So Romans were good in math, how do you get 2? By my math it is 4 times in the last 4 months.

8. I am not saying they are biased reviews, they are pushing this product in an unusual way and it begs the question of why.

9. Did I tackle you at a security conference for taking a StillSecure t-shirt? Usually if I tackle you, you stay down, so I am not sure. Maybe I didn’t get a clean shot in. But I always liked to think t-shirts were for customers and not adult trick or treaters. Which one were you?

10. (Just because I need a 10 for my top 10 list). Don’t come on my blog spouting off without the facts to back them up.  Have a happy holiday.