NTT’s pet vendor WhiteHat Security comes to Australia

A vendor named WhiteHat Security has landed in Australia, in a rather odd way.

WhiteHat is an independent subsidiary of services concern NTT. The company specialises in application security testing.

For now, the company’s market entry is very modest: it’s “leveraging the local experience and presence” of NTT “to accelerate growth and the recruitment of sales and engineering staff.”

That leverage has already delivered “major customer wins, including a top-four financial services firm in the region.” But White Hat would not name any of the customers it has won.

Nor would it tell CRN Australia how many people it plans to hire, or in what roles. But a company representative did say that when it enters new markets it hires staff to cover sales engineering, sales, sales development and customer success roles.

That sales team “will be responsible for recruiting, managing & partnering with local channel partners.” If they can be bothered recruiting any: the company rep told us “we are open to partnering with additional channel partners outside of NTT, however, we anticipate NTT being our primary partner in the region.”

We were also told that WhiteHat's current clients have been recruited by sales teams in the USA and Europe.

All of which adds up to a pretty unusual market entry: the company has customers, but no staff, won a major financial services company without feet on the ground, is open to partnerships but already has a preferred partner, and has nobody to talk to about partnering even if anyone feels like going head to head with NTT.

Welcome to Australia, WhiteHat Security. You’ve made an impressive start!