Editor’s note: Jane Wright is Engagement Manager and Senior Analyst with Technology Business Research.
HAMPTON, N.H. – Dell is targeting ongoing security concerns for business data in public cloud storage platforms.
After forming a strategic partnership with DropBox last year, Dell enhanced its Dell Data Protection Cloud Edition (DDP CE) solution with new security features that increase organizations’ abilities to protect business data in end users’ Dropbox for Business accounts. The enhancements increase the IT department’s visibility and control over business data that employees place in Dropbox accounts while helping to ensure that employees adhere to their organizations’ security policies.
As organizations leverage public cloud storage platforms such as Dropbox for ease of use and flexibility, they are increasingly challenged with maintaining control of business data as it moves through workflows or is shared with partners and other organizations. In addition, IT departments must continue to cope with end users creating “rogue” accounts on Dropbox or other public cloud storage platforms when they believe they can be more productive outside the restrictions of their companies’ policies.
DDP CE with Dropbox for Business is designed to address these requirements by providing a more seamless end-user experience while strengthening encryption, authentication and malware prevention controls. The new features include enhanced file-level encryption that is maintained as users share files across Dropbox accounts as well as separation of business and personal data that gives IT the ability to wipe business data while leaving personal data intact. TBR believes that Dell, with these enhancements, is strengthening its position as a trusted security partner for its PC customers while increasing the value proposition of its business PCs.
Security innovations drive PC sales
After making significant security investments through acquisitions and partnerships in the past two years, Dell has set its sights on becoming a trusted security partner for server and PC deployments, helping its business customers reduce the risks that grow from many of today’s emerging trends such as BYOD and cloud usage — ultimately accelerating growth of its server and PC products. BYOD increases security risks by punching holes in the secure perimeters that many organizations put in place with traditional firewalls and intrusion protection systems (IPS). Cloud usage can take sensitive or valuable data outside of IT control, where it is no longer protected by traditional data loss prevention (DLP) solutions.
TBR believes Dell has made significant progress in establishing its expertise as a security partner for its server and PC customers. As demonstrated by this announcement, Dell has taken important steps by integrating SonicWall, Credent and Invincea security capabilities into many of its product lines, which also leverage encryption technology from Dell’s acquisition of Credent. The DDP CE with Dropbox for Business enhancements reveal Dell’s continued commitment, through investments and other resources, to incorporate additional security controls in its product lines. This positions Dell to attach more products and services and increase unit sales in the sluggish PC market.
Providing security solutions designed specifically for Dropbox usage will accelerate Dell PC sales. While many of Dell’s security solutions are vendor agnostic, certain components are more fully exploited on Dell hardware. For example, DDP includes Dell’s Hardware Crypto Accelerator (HCA), which leverages the disks on Dell devices such as OptiPlex business PCs. By providing the hardware components that increase the effectiveness of its security software, Dell is ensuring that DDP CE customers will achieve the greatest level of security when end users access Dropbox from Dell PCs.
Dell’s partnership with Dropbox is unique, as other major PC manufacturers have followed different strategies to address the use of cloud storage. Lenovo offers its PC customers a rebranded SugarSync environment, while HP PC customers receive free storage space on Box. Dropbox is one of the most widely used cloud storage platforms at this time, and Dell will leverage DDP CE as a differentiator to drive business PC sales. By enhancing DDP CE to provide further protection for business data on Dropbox, Dell is ensuring that more Dropbox consumers are using Dell PCs.
[Lenovo is No. 1, HP No. 2 and Dell No. 3 in global PC sales.]
Looking ahead, Dell will continue to introduce innovations in its security solutions, including its network security and malware prevention solutions, to further its position as a security partner for PC and server customers. This can be a slow and expensive undertaking, but TBR believes Dell can accelerate its progress by leveraging Dell SecureWorks. Dell SecureWorks is one of Dell’s strongest assets in serving as a trusted advisor to customers’ security teams, particularly as midsize business customers look to outsource security tasks. Offering its DDP suites through Dell SecureWorks can extend Dell’s solutions to a larger customer base while providing additional reasons for customers to select Dell PCs.
(C) TBR
