Lanner ventures into network security

Srikanth R P / Mumbai

Lanner India, a well known firm in the industrial PC space, is looking at tapping the emerging appliance security market with its recently launched network security platform christened the FW-7650. While hardware devices embedded with a host of security features are nothing new, Lanner hopes to score in this market with the flexibility it offers to the end customer. For example, Indian software vendors can combine their own expertise in various security solutions and integrate it with the platform offered by Lanner and sell it to the end-customer.

P K Jain

Said P K Jain, managing director, Lanner India, “While the industrial PCs market is a good market, it is still not a high growth market. We believe that we have a tremendous opportunity to tap in to the network security space with our security platform. Our USP is that a single box can scale up according to the needs of corporates. For instance, if the device has just a firewall installed in it today, it can be scaled up to offer anti-virus solutions, intrusion detection systems and content filtering solutions in almost no time. Additionally, the customer will get more choice in deciding the type of security solution he wants integrated on the platform.” Jain claims that the integrated box would cost at least 40 percent lesser than the integrated security hardware devices sold by companies like Cisco.

The price difference is also due to the fact that Lanner India has encouraged small Indian software firms who have the quality but lack brand power in the market. Jain claims that bundling the software with Lanner’s security platform and brand name will help these firms establish themselves in the market place. Already, a couple of Indian firms like GajShield (a Mumbai-based firm specialising in intrusion detection systems and content filtering), Day Begins and EliteCore (a firm specialising in bandwidth management software) are selling their solutions integrated with the security platform from Lanner. The optimism from the network security segment can be judged from the fact that Lanner India is targeting Rs 5 crore in revenues from the security segment in the next one year—which is significant considering the company’s total current turnover is at Rs 12 crore. Apart from the traditional corporate space, the company would be targeting verticals like government and defence more aggressively, where Jain believes that Indian software would be preferred over foreign brands.