Fortinet revolving door still open

Fortinet Australia and New Zealand manager Steve Clack has parted ways with the company just two months after he was appointed to the role.

Fortinet Australia and New Zealand manager Steve Clack has parted ways with the company just two months after he was appointed to the role.

Clack left last week. His departure is the latest in a string of management changes at Fortinet that began May 2004, with the exit of Peter Sandilands after a three-month stint as country manager.

Sandilands was replaced in July last year by Ben Teh, who was running Australia and New Zealand operations from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In mid-October Hansen Chang came on as the security product vendor's Asia-Pacific vice-president.

When contacted by CRN, Clack declined to comment further at this stage.

Fortinet now has two staff working out of an office in North Sydney: regional sales manager Colin Lim and engineer Ben Karlo.

The company sells network security systems based on application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology.

A Fortinet representative in Singapore could not be reached at press time.

Jonathon Odria, sales manager at Fortinet distributor WhiteGold, was adamant that staff leaving over the past 12 to 18 months hadn’t affected sales.

"We are breaking into the enterprise space [with Fortinet products]," he said.

Government departments and large universities were using Fortinet gear. "We are happy with the progress we are making with Fortinet," he said.

WhiteGold was offering strong local support and a certified training centre. What was lacking was "more end-user marketing" from Fortinet specifically, Odria said.