Success stories
Insights for ISVs from Synopsys’ Joe Gomes: innovating and growing business
Partnerships have potential series.
In this new era of digital innovation, consumer demands are rapidly changing. The companies that deliver solutions to meet these demands are pushing the boundaries of the most advanced technologies to make every device and every engagement connected and smarter. To do so, a number of companies turn to Synopsys to deliver the quality and security these new innovations require.
Synopsys has combined its own industry leadership with the advantages of a Red Hat collaboration, enabling joint-go-to-market efforts and ongoing innovation. As a Red Hat Certified Technology Partner, Synopsys provides customers with innovation-enabling solutions by realizing the potential of partnerships.
Partner Connect: Tell us about Synopsys and your Red Hat OpenShift solution offering.
Joe Gomes, Global Alliances, Synopsys:
The short answer: Synopsys helps development teams build secure, high-quality software, minimizing risks while maximizing speed and productivity.
I’ll expand on that a bit: Synopsys is a recognized leader in application security, providing static analysis, software compo-sition analysis, and dynamic analysis solutions. We enable teams to quickly find and fix vulnerabilities and defects in proprietary code, open source components, and application behavior.
Our solution, Black Duck for OpenShift, allows customers to automatically scan, identify, and monitor their container images to gain visibility into, and control over, security vulnerabilities or policy violations found in the open source code that exists in their containers. It is a powerful tool for finding threats and enforcing policies.
Partner Connect: What were the business challenges and opportunities you had that motivated you to work with a partner?
Joe:
Our customers were facing the daunting task of unknown, unmanaged, and unsecure open source components in containers. Meeting their requirements is our mission:
- Security teams require every deployed container to be scanned
- Containers can originate from several, non-trusted registries
- Adding an application into a container increases the amount of open source components that must be managed
The opportunity was two-fold: meet the customers’ needs while expanding our value proposition to the customers, thereby, strategically growing our business.
Partner Connect: So why partner with Red Hat?
Joe:
As more companies started adopting open source software, it was apparent that there was a need for hardened security within open source. With Red Hat OpenShift being the leading platform in Kubernetes and container development, Black Duck from Synopsys seemed to be a natural fit with Red Hat.
We could address customers’ needs with open source components in containers deployed in Red Hat OpenShift. And, by becoming a Red Hat Certified Technology Partner, we could show customers our unique capabilities with Red Hat OpenShift, validating our knowledge.
We also wanted a partner that would work with us to go-to-market in a collaborative way, generate new business, and continue innovation.
Red Hat is amazing to work with. I’ve had the pleasure of managing our global alliance for four years. Synopsys and Red Hat have similar cultures and this provides the key ingredients for a successful relationship: the right people with transparent, cooperative, get-things-done, customer-centric attitudes.
Given the DNA of both organizations being centered on open source, and our respective market leadership, we have developed an exceptional working relationship.
Partner Connect: In your opinion, what are the top challenges facing ISVs, and how has partnering with Red Hat helped address these challenges?
Joe:
I think the three top challenges facing ISVs are:
- Nailing joint go-to-market
- Account collaboration
- Executive sponsorship – a top-down/bottom-up approach
Red Hat collaborates with us, validating solutioning and messaging. We also collaborate in account mapping and sales support. And, we have the engagement of leadership on both sides. This sets us up for a winning relationship.
We worked closely with Red Hat’s OpenShift team to develop and deliver Black Duck for OpenShift, as well as attain our certification as an OpenShift Certified Operator.
We recently worked with Red Hat’s Middleware team to develop and deliver a Middleware solution for JBoss with our Seeker tool, an IAST solution: Seeker support for JBoss. Red Hat’s commitment to working with partners in ongoing innovation is clear.
Our Operator certification process and experience was fantastic. I want to give a huge shout out to Firas Yasin, our Red Hat Alliance Manager, and the Red Hat team: Chris Morgan, Jay Dobies, Paul Christensen, Josh Manning and Kathy Hoyt for working with us. They really became a part of our team, and they are just fun to work with.
Red Hat understands the value of showcasing our collaboration and joint solutions to customers. They work closely with us to create joint collateral, and host events and webinars to educate and gain net-new customers, as well as expand our footprint within existing customers.
Partner Connect: What are the top three things ISVs should look for in a partner?
Joe:
- Product compatibility – finding a gap in the market, or in a product, and filling it with a joint solution.
- Shared goals and vision.
- The ability to execute on the shared vision to reach the shared goals.
Find out more about Synopsys by visiting their site.
