CloudPro broke the story at the end of last week. It pointed out that while some resellers have worked closely with Webroot to transition their customers to an alternative supplier, others are less than pleased. “The way in which Webroot made the decision to exit the market and the execution of that decision was unprofessional and amateur,” said Duncan Little, managing director of BrightCloud, “demonstrating utter contempt for partners and end customers alike.”
Infosecurity asked Kenton Sieckman, Webroot’s CXO (or Chief eXcellence Officer), if the report was true. He repeated the company’s earlier statement verbatim. “Webroot announced our intent to discontinue providing the Email Security Service in December of 2011. At that time we began...” This statement is already appended to the CloudPro report. It concludes, “No customer will suffer commercial disruption as a result of this process.”
But this is hardly compatible with either the content or sentiment of Duncan Little. Infosecurity asked Sieckman if Webroot could have handled things better. “We believe,” he said, “we have conducted this process with professionalism and integrity and in a way focused on minimizing the impact to customers,” and added that, “We have been working with channel partners to help our customers transition to an alternative service of their choosing.”
One of the companies seeking to take up the slack and provide a migration path for Webroot’s email customers is iCritical. “We’ve had fantastic feedback from a large number of ex-Webroot customers who’ve successfully transitioned to our services since the first announcement,” commented Chris Gee, iCritical’s managing director. “We understand the frustration that Webroot customers must be feeling but believe that our product portfolio and effortless transition process will provide reassurance that there is a credible, focused alternative available.”
That frustration certainly showed itself in Little’s comments. Infosecurity asked Webroot if it would care to comment. “While we disagree with Mr. Little’s statement,” said Sieckman, “he is entitled to his opinion.”