SD-WAN company Talari Networks has named former SonicWall executive Patrick Sweeney as chief executive officer. Sweeney brings a wealth of executive operating experience in high-growth network infrastructure markets, having served in multiple roles over his 16 years at SonicWall and Dell.
Sweeney helped take SonicWall private under Thoma Bravo in 2010 and in 2012 sold the company to Dell where he served as vice president of security marketing in the Dell Software Group. In 2016 Sweeney helped spin out SonicWall from Dell as an independent company under private equity firm Francisco Partners.
Sweeney succeeds former CEO Mark Masur, who will remain as chairman on Talari’s board of directors. “What attracted us to Patrick was his wide-reaching experience that spans across all aspects of high tech company operations,” said Masur. “His strong track record demonstrates he possesses the leadership capabilities to execute within fast-moving market transitions. As the company grows, and expands its partnerships and solution offerings, Patrick will bring an invigorated sense of purpose that will support and enhance our original vision.”
“Talari is one of the original founders of the SD-WAN space. We have a huge base of loyal customers with thousands of deployments around the world. Our customers have given us an industry-leading Net Promoter Score, validating that our solutions and support are enterprise-class,” said Sweeney.
“Now the market has kicked into hyper-growth gear, timing is everything and we intend to take full advantage of this moment! We will accelerate our success by increasing our sales capacity, implementing a 100% channel model, and continuing to lead with SD-WAN technical innovations in cloud, mobility and the distributed workforce.”
According to Gartner, “In 2014, startups providing SD-WAN products entered the branch office router market… In 2016, they began to achieve market traction beyond the innovators and drove the first wave of disruption. This resulted in 2016 sales of more than $100 million(€85.12 million), forecast to grow to $1.32 billion(€1.12 billion) in 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 59.4% over that period.” (Gartner, “Overlapping Market Disruptions Are the New Normal: How Provider Behaviors Must Change,” Joe Skorupa, Andrew Lerner, 21 August 2017)
IHS Markit reports that the SD-WAN market opportunity is projected to reach $3.3 (€2.81) billion in software and appliance revenue to SD-WAN vendors in 2021. This explosive growth is being driven by the digital transformation that enterprises and service providers are deploying throughout the world. Mobility, cloud and distributed workforces add to workloads, placing greater stress on existing private networks that lack the flexibility and lower costs that can be achieved with aggregating broadband Internet links and intelligently routing packets through dedicated conduits.
“SD-WAN adoption continues to accelerate, and the list of service providers, VARs, SIs, and regional players lining up to offer SD-WAN services using third-party vendor overlay continues to multiply,” said Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., senior research director and advisor of cloud and data center research practice for IHS Markit, a global business information provider.
In a recent IHS Markit report, service provider respondents indicated SD-WAN is a top use case for SDN & NFV, signaling a strong need for SD-WAN vendors to establish strong channel partnerships.
Talari is charting its strategic business growth by expanding its investments in sales coverage and operations focused on the channel. The company committed to engaging more deeply, and working more closely with channel partners, to increase its business opportunities and sales pipeline. An example of this is the introduction of Talari’s Managed Edge service delivery platform that supports MSPs, ASPs and CSPs that want to add managed SD-WAN services for their customers.
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