IT / Security Integrator Partnerships are a Failure

The PSA, a major proponent of IT / Security integrator partnerships has acknowledged the failure of having IT and Security integrators partner. In January 2009, we called this a "horrible idea made worse by the numerous analysts who continuously promote it."

In 2009, the PSA and an IT organization, 1nService announced a partnership program. At the time, they said, "it would be necessary for IT/networking integrators to work with physical security integrators in order to enter a physical security marketplace many of them don't have the time to really investigate."

Now the PSA acknowledges, "just one of [PSA]’s 300 security integrators had taken advantage of the relationship and cheaply joined 1nService. Virtually none of them was interested in reselling IT products and doing IT integration. Nor was any crossover happening between companies who were members of the two organizations. No partnering was happening."

Absolutely unsurprising. We argued then that this suffered from 3 irresolvable problems:

• Conflict about who is in charge of the project
• Coordination problems between the two partners
• Uncompetitive costs arising from multiple parties

While such partnerships happen once in a while and they can occasionally work, they are risky for everyone involved including the end user who can be stuck in a finger pointing situation where each partner blames the other.