Dan Schiappa, General Manager, Sophos End User Security Group (interview)

Dan Schiappa joined Sophos as general manager of the Sophos End User Security Group in 2013. He is responsible for the company’s broad portfolio of end user security offerings, including endpoint, mobile, server protection, and encryption and data protection products. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and general manager of the Identity and Data Protection Group. At RSA, Schiappa managed a business unit with annual revenue over $500M, and he had responsibility for engineering, product management, product marketing, an anti-fraud command center, and data center operations.

Previously, he held several GM positions, including Windows security, Microsoft Passport/Live ID, and was the key business leader for Microsoft’s BitLocker and Rights Management services. Prior to Microsoft, Dan was the CEO of Vingage Corporation, a video server startup acquired by L3 Mobilevision, and was an executive at PictureVision, an online digital imaging startup acquired by Kodak. Dan also held key technical roles at Informix Software and Oracle Corporation. Droid Report recently interviewed Dan about his current role discussing mobility and security insights.

Dan Schiappa, General Manager, Sophos End User Security Group

Droid Report: Hello Dan, could you tell us more about your role at Sophos and your initiatives for 2014?

Dan Schiappa:  General Manager, Sophos End User Security Group.  My teams and I get to work with every team within Sophos, as well as partners, customers, and prospects in order to better understand the market and how our products solve security issues that people have everyday. We develop Go To Market strategy, tactics and messaging and work with the broader marketing org to build marketing campaigns and programs that deliver a strong pipeline to help our partners and salespeople win business.  Our top initiatives in 2014 include:

• Accelerate our market share growth in Endpoint and Network security

• Invest in advanced security innovation both internal and M&A

• Enter adjacent markets to fuel additional growth

• Constantly improve our customers security posture through our vision of Security Made Simple

• Enable dramatic growth for our partner via our Channel First initiative

Droid Report: What are some of the most significant product offerings at Sophos?

Dan Schiappa:  To address our initiatives, we are constantly focused on securing all devices (from mobile to laptop to server), protecting the network and applications, encrypting data everywhere to enable people to share data safely, and making it all simple by managing it from Sophos Cloud.  Our most significant product offerings include:

Enduser and Device Protection

Sophos Enduser Protection

Sophos Cloud

Sophos Mobile Control

Data Protection

SafeGuard Encryption

Network Protection

Sophos UTM

Sophos Web Gateway

Sophos Email Gateway

Server Protection

Sophos Anti-Virus for vShield

Sophos Server Protection

Droid Report: What is the competitor landscape like?

Dan Schiappa:  The problem with the security market is there are so many niche vendors supplying just one product and no one product can protect a customer from all security issues.  Customers don't want to buy a bunch a niche products and then have to stitch them together to create some sense of security around their data and infrastructure.  So you can find dozens of competitors who just focus on the Network security market, or the Endpoint security market, or Mobile, or Server, etc…  Sophos offers an integrated and simple approach to security across all those markets – we are one of very few vendors who are a one stop shop, and we're the only one who makes security simple for small to large businesses.  We're gaining market share by helping customers consolidate multiple security offerings which increases their security and dramatically simplifies the management of the environment.

Droid Report: What is your personal take on some of the current trends you are seeing within the field?

Dan Schiappa:  There are some very interesting trends happening in the market that are having a significant effect on the IT market:

User Control vs. IT Control – For decades the IT department at companies was in control of what devices, applications, and networks the employees could use.  That's no longer he case – users have the power to access information everywhere to get their jobs done in the most productive and effective manner.  And when IT attempts to restrict access or limit devices, users are going around them.  Intelligent IT departments have recognized this and are moving quickly to enable this level of freedom and productivity by finding simple and effective security solutions to protect the right business assets.  We see dramatic growth in our Mobile Security, Mobile Device Management, and Data Encryption that can protect laptops, phones, tablets as well as sharing data to the Cloud.

Distributed Work Force – Bandwidth and mobility have enabled people to work anywhere they want and we are seeing it all around the world. Large offices are being replaced by smaller offices and home offices as we are all connected via conference calls, video calls, email, and collaboration tools.  This is saving money for businesses, and enabling employees to have more flexibility in lifestyle and work location, but challenging IT teams to protect corporate data and assets as there is no corporate perimeter.  We are seeing huge growth in Unified Threat Management (UTM) to protect the network infrastructures, as well as Secure VPN and Wi-Fi at remote employee locations.  And similarly to the "User Control" trend above, Mobile Security and Management, Data Protection, and Cloud protection and also benefiting this trend.

Mobile generation – Many of the people entering the workforce over the past few years don't remember life before mobile phones and app stores. They interact with information and people in a much different way than the generations before them.  Everything is real time and access is universal. Tremendous freedom for user and tremendous challenges for IT.  Our Mobile Security and Management solutions are riding this wave to explosive growth and protecting this next generation of employees.  In addition, we have all become accustomed to managing devices, software and services from the web, so our Sophos Cloud security and management offering is addressing this trend with a very simple approach.

Droid Report: What are your personal thoughts on technology, the future of mobility and applications?

Dan Schiappa:  Mobile technology advances rapidly.  I believe the current state of the mobile computing paradigm is akin to the PC of the late 90’s.  Most applications are still a platform specific client application, while a small percentage run in a browser.  I do expect the mobile market to follow the PC market whereas many more applications will run in the browser.  This allows application developers to support more platforms, update and enhance their products quickly, and have more control over the application experience.  With this, comes a whole new security requirement.  Mobile Phones and Tablets will no longer have a pass on malware and other security issues.  Securing those devices becomes as critical as securing any device in your enterprise.  The technology to do this must be specific to mobile in one regards, but generic enough that a mobile endpoint is just like any other endpoint on the your network from a security perspective.  It needs to be a first class citizen.

Droid Report: Is there anything else you feel Android users and the Android market should know?

Dan Schiappa:  They are part of the fastest growing operating platform in the market, and unfortunately the fastest growing platform for malware. They need to protect their data – both corporate and personal.  To protect the Android market, we offer free anti-virus security (Sophos Mobile Security) that helps Android users stay safe and productive.  And as their respective companies allow those devices to access corporate networks, data and applications, we can not only manage that access and protect that data through Sophos Mobile Control, but we can also manage the Mobile Security through that same interface.

We began producing antivirus and encryption products nearly 30 years ago. Today our products help secure the networks used by 100 million people in 150 countries and 100,000 businesses, including Pixar, Under Armour, Northrop Grumman, Xerox, Ford, Avis, and Toshiba. As IT networks grow in complexity, we’re focused on keeping IT security simple and reliable. We know that a proper security strategy must include networks, servers and devices—all devices—managed easily through the cloud.

We would like to thank Dan Schiappa for taking the time for this discussion and Sophos.