Dell Scales Down SuperMassive Firewall For SMB, Cuts Price

Dell Monday unveiled a lower-priced version of its SuperMassive 10000 firewall that puts the enterprise-class security appliance into the hands of midmarket solution providers looking to sell higher up in the SMB market.

The new SuperMassive 9800 is almost half the price of Dell's 10000 model but delivers the same ease of deployment capabilities, global management features, and high 20-Gbps speeds while juggling deep packet inspections, according to Dell.

The firewall solution was rolled out at Dell's SonicWall-focused Security Peak Performance Conference taking place in Orlando, Fla., this week. According to Dell, the SuperMassive debut also includes new incentives and rebates available to partners designed to spark new SMB sales.

Related: Working With NSS Labs, Palo Alto Networks Fixes Security Weakness

Dell SonicWall partners say the solution fills a growing gap where more robust solutions are needed to address the growing security demands of midsize firms. Industrywide vulnerabilities including ShellShock and Heartbleed, partners say, are increasingly targeting midmarket companies and not just large enterprises.

"We are seeing more traction from security in the midmarket," said Rory Sanchez, president and CEO of SLPowers, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based Dell partner. "More and more companies are realizing security is not a box to check. They are looking for a second pair of eyes, a managed solution, and someone to monitor traffic."

This latest SMB charge by Dell's SonicWall security division coincides with a big SMB push by rivals Palo Alto Networks and Check Point Software Technologies to scale down enterprise solutions for the SMB market and as companies such as Sophos and WatchGaurd attempt to scale up.

Sanchez said, since Dell has gone private, it has become extremely aggressive with its SonicWall solutions, upping the ante with margins, perks and rebates.

According to research firm Gartner, the firewall market grew 9 percent last year and is expected to grow another 9 percent in 2014 to reach $9.4 billion. The firewall market is expected to continue a compound annual growth rate of 10 percent through 2016, Gartner reported.

"As threats scale down from the largest enterprise to the midmarket, we are seeing Fortinet, Juniper, Cisco and -- you name it -- getting very aggressive with partners," Sanchez said.

Patrick Sweeney, executive director, Dell Security, said that the SuperMassive 9800 offers Global Management System 8.0 enterprise workflow automation that allows solution providers to easily consolidate the management of security appliances and reduce administrative and troubleshooting complexities.

"Key takeaways are the SuperMassive's reasonable price, workflow management, and the ability to deploy, customize and manage not just one customer, but 40 customers' firewalls at the same time," Sweeney said.

The SuperMassive 9800 firewall will be priced at $55,000 and it will be available for partners through the Dell PartnerDirect program or as a Dell SecureWorks solution.

PUBLISHED OCT. 13, 2014