The company also hired a director of mergers and acquisitions, whose job it will be to identify opportunities for SonicWall to grow non-organically.

Medeiros, who was brought in in March to turn around SonicWall’s flagging fortunes, told ComputerWire: Our entire direct sales force has been eliminated, we’re going to live or die by the channel.

Previous management set us on a course to go after the enterprise class market, where we would need a direct sales force, Medeiros said. I’m trying to get the company back to its roots, the strategy is to get back to the indirect sales model.

Medeiros declined to disclose how much money the company hopes to save with the layoffs, which will cost $1.5m to $2.5m, and other restructuring efforts. The company is also closing overseas offices where it has channel partners, and a facility in Utah.

Medeiros said SonicWall is targeting the sub-$10,000 marketplace for firewall and VPN appliances, where it has historically performed well. The company’s product roadmap will reflect the return to this focus, he said.

By late summer to early fall, fifty percent of all products we offer will be new SKUs, he said. We’re completely renewing our product line over the course of 2003.

At the end of 2002, the security vendor was sitting on cash and equivalents in excess of $232m, but last year saw its aging Pro line of mid-market firewalls and VPNs lose sales momentum, and latest quarterlies posted in April showed revenue figures of $20.3m, down 27.7% on year-ago numbers.

In recent months the company has launched a hosted service to deliver web content filtering to its firewall customers, and a series of wireless LAN firewall/VPN devices aimed at small offices, enterprise departments and wi-fi hot spots.

Last week, Edward Cohen was hired to fill a newly created position to help the company identify, evaluate and integrate acquisition options. Cohen is said to have closed more than a dozen deals in his prior role as director of M&A at Philips Electronics. He will work alongside the company’s VP of strategy and business development.

Source: Computerwire