Does religion blind our technology decisions?

It seems that we keep getting caught up in what can be referred to as “religious” discussions when it comes to technology and the choices in front of us.  Consider the UTM debate and the proposition by influencers of the industry that enterprises have no business investing in this technology.  I am not going to focus on the debate between UTM and alternatives available within the market today; instead I want to ask why there needs to be a line drawn in the sand? Is there value in telling enterprises “thou shall not adopt UTM,” or is there more value in giving an impartial opinion on how each approach has their own respective merits for ANYONE, enterprise or not? Never before (at least not that I can recall) has there been such adamant drives to tell customers what technology simply has NO PLACE for them.

This is casting our memories back to a time when firewalls and VPNs were “supposed to be” separated for many reasons (performance, security etc.), but with technology innovation and advances the naysayers were silenced.  Yes, it makes sense to merge these perimeter technologies – the technology exists, it makes sense and it benefits customers.

Can we not draw a parallel between this example with new security products and solutions?  Yes, I don’t doubt that there are some customers that are not ready for the convergence of an integrated security solution (aka UTM), but there are many customers who are ready and a UTM solution is right for them. ”Evangelists” are merely doing the industry a disservice by saying “NO! You might like the idea, heck you might even like the product and can derive significant benefit from it…but you are an ENTERPRISE! Send that box packing on that Unicorn riding Pixie it rode in on.”

We can all quote factual data supporting any side of the story, but at the end of the day what counts is that we are all developing products and technologies to stop the spread of cybercrime and protect customers and their infrastructures.  The packaging is just the wrapping – do yourself a favor, evaluate and purchase the technology that solves your problem, and if you are an enterprise evaluating UTM, don’t fret. We are here to support you.