Palo Alto Networks Signs Distribution Agreements with Westcon Group and COMPUTERLINKS

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Palo Alto Networks™, the network security company, today announced that it has signed Westcon Group and COMPUTERLINKS as authorized distributors of its award-winning products throughout North America providing additional training, support, evaluation demo gear, demand generation programs, financial credit terms and global account fulfillment resources to authorized NextWave resellers – Palo Alto Networks' partner program.

Dean Douglas, President and CEO of Westcon Group, commented: "As our company strategy focuses on accelerating growth through broader market reach and the addition of select new products to our portfolio, we have identified Palo Alto Networks as a significant emerging manufacturer in the network security industry. Our reseller partners stand to benefit significantly from this strategic relationship."

Stephan Link, founder and CEO of COMPUTERLINKS, said: "This agreement creates a solid framework for Palo Alto Networks and COMPUTERLINKS to quickly and effectively deliver value to the reseller community. We expect Palo Alto Networks to be a significant vendor of ours from the outset, and one that will represent tremendous growth potential for resellers who take full advantage of all of our combined resources."

Partners are quickly recognizing how Palo Alto Networks' solutions can uniquely enable enterprises to see and control applications, users and content – not just ports, IP addresses and packets – which is critical to properly managing risks. In fact, annual growth of Palo Alto Networks' top North American partners exceeded 300% in its most recent fiscal year.

To support the accelerating demand for its next-generation firewalls, Palo Alto Networks needs to quickly expand its channel presence in the North American market.  Westcon Group and COMPUTERLINKS will help in three ways:

• Existing Palo Alto Networks partners will benefit from additional marketing, training and support resources so they can more rapidly grow their business.
• Channel partners that successfully sell network security solutions can be quickly on-boarded with Palo Alto Networks.
• Partners will also be able to sell into larger global accounts where demand is increasing for Palo Alto Networks next generation firewalls - both distributors provide global reach.

"We are very excited to join forces with these two highly respected, global value added distributors," said Lane Bess, president and CEO of Palo Alto Networks. "These agreements further validate that enterprises and partners are aware of Palo Alto Networks and global distributors see a significant business benefit in working with us to meet this growing demand."

"I looked forward to this day and am delighted that it has happened so quickly," Bess added.

Palo Alto Networks has been recognized by CRN as a 'Top Emerging Technology Vendor' and more recently a leading channel publication commented that, "there may be no hotter company in the network security space right now than Palo Alto Networks". For more information on Palo Alto Networks and its products, please visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.

For additional information on the Westcon Group, visit http://www.westcongroup.com/.

For more on COMPUTERLINKS, please go to http://www.computerlinks.com/.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks™ is the network security company.  Its next-generation firewalls enable unprecedented visibility and granular policy control of applications and content – by user, not just IP address – at up to 10Gbps with no performance degradation. Based on patent-pending App-ID™ technology, Palo Alto Networks firewalls accurately identify and control applications – regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic or SSL encryption – and scan content to stop threats and prevent data leakage. Enterprises can for the first time embrace Web 2.0 and maintain complete visibility and control, while significantly reducing total cost of ownership through device consolidation. For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.

Palo Alto Networks, "The Network Security Company," the Palo Alto Networks Logo and App-ID are trademarks of Palo Alto Networks, Inc. in the United States. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.

SOURCE Palo Alto Networks