News
Manakoa Unveils Partner Program, Compliance Tools
- By Paul Desmond
- July 26, 2005
If you’ve been searching for an effective way to get your
foot in the door at client sites, Robert Williams thinks he may
have just the ticket: regulatory compliance.
Williams is CEO of Manakoa Services Corp., based in Kennewick,
Wash. Manakoa makes software tools to help organizations assess
their security posture and determine whether they are in compliance
with various federal regulations, including the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm Leach Bliley Act
(GLBA), Sarbanes Oxley and the Federal Information System Management
Act (FISMA). The Manakoa tools run on top of or integrate with various
Microsoft products, including Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM),
Active Directory, SQL Server and Windows Server 2003 – enabling
partners to sell not only the Manakoa software, but the ancillary
Microsoft products.
“It gets [partners] in the door in an effective way, talking
about compliance,” Williams says. “They can get visibility
in a way they couldn’t before – because the boss has
to stay out of jail.”
At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this month,
Manakoa formally unveiled its flagship product, Manakoa Compliance
Services (MCS) and announced the launch of its partner program.
MCS enables companies to collect information about their IT assets
in a single repository and manage it in a way that ensures they
are in compliance with various regulations. The product integrates
with Active Directory, enabling users to take advantage of policy
and procedure info stored there. It helps users create a repeatable
and measurable process for ensuring regulatory compliance, Williams
says.
MCS also allows users to collect asset data once and apply it to
different compliance routines. The company offers Compliance Auditing
Management Packs (CAMP) for four federal regulatory statutes: HIPAA,
GLBA, FISMA and Sarbanes Oxley. The CAMP modules run on top of MOM
2005 and provide a plan of attack for getting into compliance as
well as ongoing reports, controls and audits to ensure systems remain
in compliance.
The company is looking for partners to sell the tools into verticals
most affected by the regulations, including health care, financial
services and government, says Ed Nichols, senior vice president
of business development for Manakoa. Its partner program will have
three tiers – bronze, silver and gold – corresponding
to how much Manakoa software the partner sells. The company will
provide free training and support, and there are currently no fees
to participate.
“We can increase the expertise of a partner and allow them
to enter a new field, such as regulatory compliance, or deliver
a new offering to an existing environment they’re in,”
Nichols says. The tools also help partners create an ongoing relationship
with customers, helping them ensure they remain in compliance with
relevant regulations.
Manakoa some deep roots in the security and risk management realm,
and counts three Microsoft security MVPs among its employees, including
Williams, who has 30 years of computer and security experience.
Williams previously founded Secure Logistix in the wake of the anthrax
attacks at the U.S. Postal Service. James Riviere, who at the time
was in charge of managing the anthrax incident at a critical postal
facility, called on Williams to develop risk management models to
assess where contaminated equipment and letters may have gone.
Once the crisis was over, Williams figured there had to be other
uses for his risk management models. They became the foundation
of the Manakoa technology—and Riviere now sits on the company’s
board.
About the Author
Paul Desmond, the founding editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine, is president of the IT publishing firm PDEdit in Southborough, Mass. Reach him at [email protected].