Ding Dong Untangle's Dead...

[Sky-Knight]

From an email I just received.

Hello Robert,
As a Valued Partner of Untangle, we are pleased to share that Untangle Holdings, LLC. is now part of Arista Networks.

Arista Networks is a leader in cognitive client to cloud networking with award-winning platforms delivering availability, agility, automation, analytics and security. Untangle’s NG Firewall and Micro Edge solutions, along with Command Center complement Arista’s Commercial Market offerings.

Untangle is joining Arista Networks in providing Edge Threat Management assets for the Commercial Market. We’ll share over the next few weeks more details of how you can add additional products, such as wireless access points and network switches, to your existing Untangle portfolio.

Untangle will operate as part of Arista’s security division to deliver secure edge networking. You will continue to see myself, Timur Kovalev and Heather Paunet in communications, forums and webinars. You can continue to do business with us, and contact us using the channels you are used to.

The entire Untangle and relevant Arista teams look forward to helping you build up your business through these expanded opportunities.

Scott Devens
CEO, Untangle

I had wondered when this would happen, and now it is. On the upside, I suppose we'll all have an "Untangle" headed stack to work with, but with mergers like this the devil is in the details. I don't hold much hope that Untangle as we know it will survive, which likely means NGFW is dead long term too. Time will tell, but I'm quite pessimistic about all this.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah saw that email....
Wondered how much they'll change down the road. I'll remain optimistic.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@YeOldeStonecat I'm trying to force myself into that head space... But my past experience with other such situations isn't great.

 

[timeshifter]

"cognitive client to cloud networking with award-winning platforms delivering availability, agility, automation, analytics and security."

Who the eff talks like this? Ugh.

 

[mikeroq]

Who the eff talks like this? Ugh.

Buzzwords, "business speak". Made for CxO and directors!

 

[Sky-Knight]

@timeshifter Yeah things are pretty weird right now.

We get a partner email but no PR on the Untangle website? Combine that with a lack of 2FA on the admin interface and we're really scratching at the fact that Untangle is seriously understaffed.

But, Arista has job openings all over the place, and an Untangle employee said they're planning on expanding staff everywhere. Arista does indeed make a FINE switch... but it's Datacenter level gear. It's obvious they want Untangle to head their security stack. And they seem to be investing appropriately for now.

But that's also why I say Untangle is dead... doubling a company tends to murder its culture. Untangle is already almost soulless since Dirk retired... so it's down to time to see if what emerges from this muck actually cares about what they're doing enough to be the force of good in the market it's been up until now.

Sadly, given the nature of the last three years, I fear Scott had little choice. It was sell out, or watch the place fold. Things have NOT been healthy over there for a LONG time now.

 

[Markverhyden]

In all the years I've been doing this and I don't think I've ever seen any Arista equipment. Of course most of my work is in the SOHO market with smattering of DC and NOC so that may explain it. I have no idea what their sales breakout is but I'guess their in the carrier space as well backbone based on the equipment offerings. So Untangle would appear to be a sensible purchase to allow them expand to smaller foot prints. I remember when Microsoft bought Virtual PC. They were touting about how much it would be used. I think they made 2 more releases then buried it.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah I was waiting for at least one post on Untangles forums.
Maybe the forum mods delete 'em soon as someone makes one.

Agreed it's been quieter since DIrk left.
Surprised I didn't hear from Katie...I heard she was leaving. Had met her twice...once for lunch, and she stopped at our office once with another sales girl, dropped off some swag and had a meeting.

I did a quick Google search after receiving that email, one of the hits I got was on some job hunting site, a position "Untangle Support"...open the ad, and it has Arista as the company. But the job description was clearly for Untangle Support. No visible date on the job posting, but...it was probably done at least a few days before the announcement email. Or at least that morning.

I'll remain optimistic that Untangle will survive. They have quite a bit of reseller presence, a lot of appliances and subscriptions out there, they can't just go up and quit, close the doors on the product.

In the mean time, I'll start keeping an eye open for a replacement product. I've been spoiled by the "Visibility in the single pane of glass" functionality of Ubiquiti's Unifi. But...I need a stronger edge appliance, like Untangle was. Would be nice to find a similar feature in another product. Fortinet provides that, same webUI console lets you see edge device..switches..and APs..much like Unifi (but not as fancy). Aruba's Instant On does not have an edge appliance. Engenuis does not have a UTM. Dattos network products don't give me wood. Maybe Fortinet will be what we go to next.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Fortinet has been eating Untangle's lunch on the reseller side for ages, the only other viable alternative is Sophos. The problem is they both SUCK for all the same reasons that Untangle is amazing. The market simply doesn't have an NGFW alternative, there are things that tick the same boxes, but they just aren't nearly as good. BUT, while they aren't as good, they're also a fraction of the cost...

Remember when Untangle was cheaper than Sonicwall? I miss those days, it was so easy to sell back then.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I still find Untangle cheaper than others...at least when it comes to smaller clients.
Reason is, I guess Untangle spoiled me...I tend to buy "larger" boxes....even for smaller offices, cuz I like the higher horsepower of the larger hardware appliances.

So most other UTMs...the subscription itself is based on the size of the box.
With Untangle....the price of the license was based on amount of users.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Oh yeah Untangle is a no brainier if you aren't licensing it. And you're right having the hardware decoupled from the software is extremely handy. But you and I both know there's a huge gap there, and one the sales guys abuse to cut Untangle to ribbons.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Oh yeah Untangle is a no brainier if you aren't licensing it.

I'm always licensing it...just mean, say, Untangle for <25 users, say a 10 user office...5 user office, that fits under the "12 tier".
I can put that license on a honkin' box.

A similar powered honkin' box with another brand costsa a lot more.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@YeOldeStonecat Ahh yes that makes sense. Because you're right, getting gigabit capacity for small offices in other products is PAINFUL.

Untangle's pricing drives me nuts because the pricing ramp doesn't regress in any sort of sane way... 25 and 50 device subs have the same cost per user! But we're still talking about a thing that starts at $1.88 / device / month, and regresses to $1.5 / device / month at 75 seats, but then ramps up to $1.58 / device / month at the 100 device level!

In the end $1.80 / device / month for what Untangle offers is a steal. I mean heck you can't buy a mailbox from Microsoft for that! Doesn't help though when trying to sell the thing, because the competition doesn't even do per user or per device pricing. It's per network! And then intentionally throttled into next week into crap hardware, because that's how they do the pricing ramp... speed.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

So, while I was down in Florida for some of the winter, I guess the email sent to partners got by me.

Yesterday I reached out to several different contacts I have (had) at Untangle, and within an hour, heard back from 3 of them.
My main contact, Katie Bensten, Director of Sales, left the company in Feb after a good career there.
I heard back from Brandi Fretwell, and Mary Tillman, and Micki Eubanks. Brandi and Mary stopped by our office last year.

Brandi sent me a link to a webinar, which...was sent out a bit ago...the email I mention above that I missed. It's a pre-recorded webinar, you can still watch it now.

And I just had a phone call with her about an hour ago.

https://register.gotowebinar.com/re...T9zrsq8M7A2gOpkV-lUF0SctrTfqG9jyfmnwbvdIIyODg

It's 42 minutes long...but...if you're an Untangle partner and hope to continue, it's important to watch, and you'll be excited about things.

Take away cliff notes....
*Arista came about after Google put out a request for bids back around 2004 for ultra reliable, ultra low latency, fast, centrally managed switches for their cloud data centers around the globe. Some engineers came together and formed Arista…and they won the contract.

*Microsoft soon joined the “big client list” with their deployment of Azure data centers around the globe.

*Partners will still be key. Arista will be “100% channel driven” for their products

*Arista wants to break into the SMB market…<500 user networks, so they have a new Cognitive Unified Edge (CUE) product lineup for their channel partners.

*Untangles NG Firewall will be the edge device for CUE. Aristas switches and APs will be the internal part of CUE.

*There are several 12 and 16 port switches (with POE and SPF/SPF+), and about a half dozen APs, in the CUE product lineup so far. All the APs have a 3rd radio to scan for IDS. Some indoor and outdoor models.

*Untangles Command Center will remain. Arista is merging that with their Cloud Management Launchpad, where you can manage the switches and APs. Road Map to continue that development and merge them even closer together.

*Can still purchase Untangles hardware for quite some time. Arista is currently introducing their own hardware platforms.

*Current Untangle partner margins will remain intact, and continue forward. You can also scale up and register with Arista for their larger products (since the CUE hardware so far just has the 12 and 16 port switch)….to get the larger 24/48 port switches. Margins on those for their partners can be VERY good.

I look forward to the upcoming changes. We've had a fairly standard network model for our clients. Untangle at the edge, and Ubiquiti on the inside. The new portal to manage NG Firewall, combined with Aristas switches and APs...will be nice.

And existing Untangle partners will keep their margin levels, and Aristas margins can be REALLY good.

 

[mmerry]

Hoping to stay in the Untangle area but backup plans are in place if needed. Thanks for the update YeOldeStonecat

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah Arista's talking points on being channel focused is INCREDIBLY good news. My largest point of pain has been Untangle taking clients direct. If that stops, things are an objective improvement.

So going back to my OP, Untangle is indeed dead... But what's replaced it is so far looking pretty good. So do I care? Certainly not yet!

Oh, and all you Untanglers... now would be a good time to start disabling automatic updates, the next version of Untangle is going to be a new OS, and a DOOZY of an update... This is due to a new version of python, serious changes to the Debian kernel, and all sorts of things, nothing to do with Arista. v17.0 was always going to be rough!

 

[sean]

When is untangle v17.0 due out ? Had fun the last time a big update like that came out

 

[Sky-Knight]

When is untangle v17.0 due out ? Had fun the last time a big update like that came out

My guess is sometime this Summer, and due to its complexity and the current Untangle dev team is the same team that did the last one... I'd expect at least a public alpha, then a beta, and finally a release. All of which will be on the Untangle forums, so when I see that alpha drop I'll be making my usual rounds to all the forums I'm on, as well as making a Facebook announcement on Nexgen's feed regarding it. Because at that moment is when you need to kill automatic updates.