Q1 Labs open new offices in response to growing demand for SIEM and Security Intelligence Solutions

Q1 Labs has hired Pierre Herbolet to work with partners in Spain and Italy to deliver security intelligence solutions

Q1 Labs, a global provider of total security intelligence solutions, has announced its strongest year-to-date growth in Europe and has committed more resources to ensure partners and customers benefit from its expertise within SIEM. The company has added over 55 customers in Europe in Q3 2010 alone, and in the first three quarters of 2010, has more than doubled its EMEA customer base.

The company's accelerated growth across Europe is indicative of the global surge in demand for SIEM technology. After the first nine months of the year, Q1 Labs now counts over 1400 customers worldwide, with over half of the new customers acquired this year coming from outside North America. The three new offices now bring Q1 Labs' headcount to 25 in Europe, having added 22 new hires since late 2009.

In Southern Europe and France, Q1 Labs has recruited Pierre Herbolet, formerly with ArcSight, to work closely with partners in both Spain and Italy to deliver security intelligence solutions including log management, risk management and next-generation SIEM implementations. "At the moment, Italy in particular is very receptive to our technology with changes to the Garante code that places more importance on the ability to properly audit security controls within organisations," explains Herbolet. "The past two months has seen a very dynamic market, including three major customer wins in these territories."

In Germany, Q1 Labs has appointed Markus Auer, formerly with SourceFire, to assist a growing partner community in Germanic territories including Germany, Austria and Switzerland. "We are adding several new regional partners, and it is vital that we properly support our growing community with both technical and sales resources at a local level," he comments.

In the rapidly growing Nordic region, Asger Milling, formerly of Citrix, has been appointed as the new Q1 Labs regional manager. "Q1 Labs is rapidly growing throughout Europe and is striving to become the market leader in the Nordic region. My intention is to help partners capitalise on this growth," Milling explains.

"In the first three quarters in 2010, we doubled our installed base outside of North America. Much of our growth in Europe is driven by customers unfreezing their IT budgets and the need to maintain critical levels of security intelligence without any increase in our customers' headcount," explains Steve Jenkins, Vice President of Q1 Labs' EMEA group. "From our partners, we are hearing that our focus on automation and integration of many of the time consuming aspects of SIEM deployment and operations allows firms with tightly stretched resources to effectively do more with less."

Another area Jenkins believes is aiding growth is the potential for stricter compliance. "Many of our new customers are looking at the prevailing wind from regulators and influential industry groups, and putting in place the frameworks to maintain a higher level of audit and control around security - ahead of mandated requirements that have been talked about for some time at both a national and international level, including PCI DSS, GPG-13, FSA, Garante and others."

For example, the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) confirmed that it is in the process of imposing fines against two organisations that have breached the Data Protection Act. At a European level, an amendment to the European Council E-Privacy Directive, which comes into effect early next year, will force telecommunication carriers to disclose all security breaches on their networks. "Regulators are now keener to flex their muscles and organisations need to understand that brushing security breaches ‘under the carpet' will become increasingly difficult and costly," Jenkins adds.