Rob
I agree with a lot of the points you made above. I would also like to add to the debate by saying that many UK companies make mistakes when moving into Ireland. Some key points to remember;
(1) Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom. It is a separate country with a separate currency. So learn to speak in Euros and not Sterling.
(2) Regarding point (1) do not refer to England as the mainland. This tends to upset us Irish people a little bit as being a small island of the coast of Europe, we tend to think of Europe as the mainland.
(3) The market in Ireland is very different from the UK. We may be a country but in population size we are the same as a mid-size UK city. Also 97% of Irish businesses are SMEs with less than 50 staff and €10m turnover.
(4) Selling to SMEs is a tough sale. So you may decide to avoid this market but remember that you and all your competitors will be fighting for the remaining 3% of businesses. Many of which are multinationals so probably purchase through their head office anyway.
(5) The regulatory and compliance environment is not yet as mature as that in the US or indeed the UK.
So remember the above when company across but whatever don't mention the mainland.
Brian
Very important points, thanks Brian. I will in fact do a separate post on selling into other regions.
I just wanted to get the main points across first, but where US companies can appear arrogant in their approach to the UK, it is easy for UK companies to appear just as arrogant in their apprioach to the rest of EMEA.
Rob,
Sounds like a business plan for a security software/services "broker" to me...
Excellent post, Rob. I was going to comment about the different regions, but it sounds like you're going to post about this soon.
While we are on the subject of UK, what the the top UK security publication, even blogs, etc?
Somebody made what sounds like a pretty bizarre statement to me a few days ago: they said that UK people don't read the US security media/blogs/information sources and mostly follow the UK ones since "everything is different in UK"
Care to comment on that?
"Mostly following the UK" may be true, and everything IS different in the UK, as I've been discussing recently, but it would certainly seem shortsighted not to at least be aware of what's happening in the US.
Then again, maybe that's why no-one listens to me over here and all my friends are in San Francisco...?
I think the smart people do both. The really smart people write about it. 
Thanks ... but so what are the UK-specific popular sources of security info?
Apart from me you mean?
Well, there are channel magazines, reseller magazines and UK versions of Computer Weekly, Computing, etc.
Online we have ZDNet.co.uk, The Register, erm... the list is endless.
My interest is in US companies because they are interesting and lead the worldwide market, however, what really shapes the UK channel is the channel itself. It is driven by what's needed, and people buy what they need based on business requirements. Only the fact that they are unaware of what is out there means that they are 4 years behind the US. It's all very self perpetuating.
What's really needed to drive the channel market is small, maneuverable resellers, agile companies who can react to the market again, like the old days, get some buzz going. I'm talking to people like this right now and trying to get things going again down here.
Hopefully we'll catch up at InfoSec - we can talk about all of this in detail, but reading between the lines here, I don't think advertising anywhere in the UK is going to be significantly useful for LogLogic. Having a proper channel strategy will. Mail me again if you want to chat more...
Sure, let's talk later - but it really is not about advertising.
It was about a more subtle subject: are the opinions of the US security experts valued in the UK (yes, it sounds really bizarre but I was told that "UK security expert" is not the same as "US security expert")?
Sure, let's talk later - but it really is not about advertising.
It was about a more subtle subject: are the opinions of the US security experts valued in the UK (yes, it sounds really bizarre but I was told that "UK security expert" is not the same as "US security expert")?
Personally speaking, you guys are more valuable because you see everything at least 4 years before we do.
Then all I have to do is drop one of you a mail 3 years later and I still look like a visionary.
Damn, I'm giving away trade secrets on the interweb...
Seriously though, the landscape is completely different, the laws are different: we have no SB1386 equivalent for example. There's no HIPAA, no GLBA, no CFR21. PCI DSS is just about taking off now, but it was supposed to be set in stone years ago.
Anyone heard of MiFID? No, thought not, that was released 2 weeks ago and no-one cares. I'm interested in US security because it's more advanced and where we will be, UK security is still in the policies and process discussion period, not "how can we improve technologies".
Sadly I think some large companies are going to have eaten up all the cool technologies before we get a chance to see many more over here without a MicroGoogle branding.
Commenting by HaloScan
