With over 15 years of experience gained holding positions of responsibility in leading companies in the IT sector, Ottavio Camponeschi was called to lead the Italian branch of McAfee Inc. in October 2003 to strengthen strategic and commercial inputs and guide the Italian branch towards achieving the set business objectives. Born in 1964, Camponeschi completed his studies in the United States at Hempstead University with a specialization in Computer Science. His career began at Toshiba in 1985 and continued in prominent companies in the IT world, before joining BMC Software in 1995. Starting as a Sales Manager, during the following 5 years, which greatly contributed to his rich sales experience, he held various positions of responsibility before leaving the company in 2000 as Country Sales Manager. His last professional experience, from 2000 until September 2003, saw Ottavio Camponeschi at Ariba, initially as Country Manager Italy, then becoming Regional Manager Southern Europe, and finally Vice President Southern Europe and France
What is meant by cybersecurity? Today, to provide a definition of cybersecurity, one must consider a completely different scenario. Since the first computer virus was identified 25 years ago, cybersecurity has evolved incredibly. We no longer simply witness attacks like viruses, trojans, or mass mailing as in the past; rather, we see companies today suffering attacks from much more sophisticated and targeted threats. Keylogging programs hidden inside trojans, denial of service attacks, spyware, spam, phishing, and identity theft are just some of the threats that are now more widespread. At the same time, IT systems themselves become more complex, and therefore more vulnerable and more subject to the risk of attacks or infections. For this reason, today more than ever, cybersecurity must be tackled in an integrated way, combining services, consulting, products, and management solutions. It is essential to immerse oneself in the client’s reality, and this has always been McAfee’s approach, to offer solutions as precisely targeted as possible, supporting clients in the creation of policies, in the analysis and management of critical issues, vulnerabilities, threats, and related countermeasures to be implemented, up to verifying compliance with policies.What is the state of the Italian security market and what are the prospects? Today the emerging trend indicates that companies, even in Italy, are aware that they need more than just antivirus or firewall to protect their systems. A comprehensive security solution is necessary, not just to protect systems but also to comply with current regulations. Until recently, the keyword was “best of breed”: for each network security component, the best solution was chosen either abstractly by trust in the name or concretely because it was the most suitable for the specific situation. From this trend, however, the key problem emerges which indicates how managing a range of different solutions from various suppliers is a complex problem. Security software needs to be constantly updated, while licenses must be renewed and purchased on an ongoing basis. Moreover, managing these diverse solutions is inefficient. We see that the “security explosion” happening in IT expenditure is becoming a headache, as CIOs and IT Managers respond to new attacks by buying multiple security solutions but not always choosing efficient solutions.What relationship do Italian companies have with security? If we ask what is the main security problem for a corporate user, the answer will not surprise: lack of time, money, and sufficient resources. The last time any security provider came to a client and heard “we have unlimited time, money, and resources, we want to buy everything you can offer us” was: never. For this reason, McAfee has introduced McAfee Total Protection for small business, a solution based on McAfee’s past experience in delivering security and software as a service, which ensures an always active and always updated security environment. This is an offer dedicated to small companies that need protection for desktops and servers against viruses, spyware, hacker attacks, spam, and identity theft. Security updates are automatic and report control and configurations are provided through a web-based centralized management console. The Advanced version is offered as an automatic service, with automatic updates and report control and configurations provided through a centralized web portal.What is McAfee’s vision? I would like to answer this with a provocation: McAfee is not just antivirus. We are the market leader in intrusion prevention and vulnerability analysis and offer complete solutions to protect desktops, servers, wireless devices, and network infrastructure against existing or yet unknown security threats. As a leader in antivirus solutions, we have evolved into a pure-play security provider, expanding our scope to all those sectors that are now considered strategic to ensure uninterrupted operations to small, medium, and large companies, offering effective solutions ranging from detection to intrusion prevention, up to security risk management.Who is your typical client? McAfee, together with channel partners, provides products and solutions to end users, small and medium enterprises, large corporations, and public administrations (including government agencies, healthcare organizations, educational institutions, and critical infrastructures). Who are your competitors? Our historic competitors are companies like Symantec, ISS, Trend Micro, but as pure play positioning in the security field, we have certainly gained an absolute advantage over all companies operating in the security sector.What does McAfee offer more than the competitors present in Italy, why choose you? We are the only pure play company in the security field. McAfee invests more than 17% of its turnover in research and development, and our solutions meet the highest market standards, are extremely effective, and able to meet user expectations and protect their personal data, which is why McAfee counts about 100 million customers worldwide, about 40% of large companies are protected with McAfee technology, while there are 20 million online users plus 15 million Ntt Docomo users. The company recorded revenue of $987.3 million in 2005, which should become $1.05-1.15 billion in 2006. Consolidated net revenue for the first quarter of 2006, ended March 31, was $272 million.How did the last year go and what are your future objectives? McAfee is effectively the largest global provider in the security sector: $1.07 billion at the end of 2005, representing 15% growth; growth reaffirmed in the first quarter of 2006 and confirmed in the second quarter, $1.3 billion cash, a capitalization fluctuating between $4 and $5 billion, $750 million “unrecognized on the books.” In short, a very solid and concrete company, growing in all markets, from large to small and medium enterprises, and consumer. We are taking market share from Symantec in the consumer market and are growing worldwide also in the enterprise market: in 2004, in Italy more than 70%, last year a business stabilization around 25-30% that should be maintained also in 2006. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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