Okta Will Sign a TSD Agreement

The cybersecurity opportunity is massive for technology advisors, and few events would pour fuel on the fire like the entrance of a high-profile company like Okta into a TSD’s line card.

The struggle for agents to corner the cybersecurity market is twofold. First, they must develop the knowledge and personnel required to function as expert advisors for their customers. For many small partners, TSD solutions engineers have proven invaluable as resources for prospective customers.

Second and perhaps more troubling is offering a full portfolio of cybersecurity services. Currently agents can sell providers of secure access service edge (like Cato Networks), managed detection and response  (like eSentire), content delivery network (like Akamai), MFA (like Traitware) and cyber intelligence (like Darktrace), but many key household names are lacking. The technology advisor channel prides itself on its vendor-agnosticism, but that can’t be possible with limited suppliers.

Crowd Strike, Arctic Wolf, Palo Alto Networks and the subject of this prediction: Okta.

At last check, the identity and access management (IAM) provider was working with about 1,200 partners, mainly consisting of systems integrators, distributors and resellers. However, Bill Hustad, Okta’s senior vice president of partners and alliances, told told Channel Futures that a “broader partner ecosystem” will allow the vendor to expand globally.

“We need to identify in-demand market motions, magnify those and relentlessly execute. I’m constantly thinking about how we expand and leverage an ecosystem based on the values brought by opportunities at hand. We can explore places where we are not doing business currently,” he said at the time.

Channel Futures reached out to Okta to hear the company’s thoughts on the agent model. Hustad told us that the company has “nothing planned” for entering the market. He did make mention of the company’s general appreciation of indirect routes to market.

“We feel distribution can play a broader role in SMB in driving customer business outcomes. Creating more aligned partner/customer relationships supports growth in our rateable business model,” Hustad told Channel Futures.

Is it a wild and baseless conjecture that Okta will sign an agreement with a tech services distributor and formally pursue the agent market? It absolutely is wild and perhaps unlikely given Okta’s official statement. However, the TSDs know that the one to bring these vendors on will be rewarded by the partner community and their customers. You can bet they’re knocking hard on the door.