McAfee does not want to be all things to all people when it comes to security, but its leadership is aiming to provide the platform that will enable better data protection.
"We believe in doing more business with fewer value-add partners, which is why we opened up our platform by providing application program interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs)," said Michael DeCesare, co-president of McAfee.
The security firm already has more than 100 members of its Security Innovation Alliance (SIA), a partnership scheme aimed at accelerating the development of interoperable security products.
"Some members of McAfee's four-year-old SIA are competitors, but we recognise that the traditional model is not working," said DeCesare.
By making it easier for third-party suppliers to develop interoperable systems, we are able to improve the overall data protection capability of customers, he said.
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"We are quite comfortable with products from other suppliers being in that mix; there is enough room for more than one security supplier to grow," he said.
At McAfee Focus 2012 in Las Vegas, the security firm announced that ForeScout Technologies, is one of the latest companies to join the SIA scheme.
The partnership means that McAfee will present ForeScout CounterACT as its preferred network access control (NAC) system to existing and prospective customers.
The companies said the combination of ForeScout CounterACT with McAfee Enterprise Security Manager (ESM), ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) software, and Endpoint Protection will help customers achieve continuous monitoring and mitigation benefits.
"The SIA is the foundation of a technology ecosystem designed to assemble the world's leading security innovators," said Ed Barry, vice-president of the SIA at McAfee.
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"By partnering with ForeScout, our customers will be able to utilise an NAC platform that integrates seamlessly with our enterprise security solutions to automate security and compliance processes," he said.
Gord Boyce, CEO of ForeScout, said: "The strong partnership between our companies and broad integration with McAfee products means that customers can fully leverage their McAfee investment to securely enable business accessibility and move the GRC [governance, risk and compliance] needle."
