• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Cisco Umbrella

Enterprise network security

  • Contact Sales
  • Login
    • Umbrella Login
    • Cloudlock Login
  • Why Us
    • Why Cisco Umbrella
      • Why Try Umbrella
      • Why DNS Security
      • Why Umbrella SASE
      • Our Customers
      • Customer Stories
      • Why Cisco Secure
    • Fast Reliable Cloud
      • Global Cloud Architecture
      • Cloud Network Status
      • Global Cloud Network Activity
    • Unmatched Intelligence
      • A New Approach to Cybersecurity
      • Interactive Intelligence
      • Cyber Attack Prevention
      • Umbrella and Cisco Talos Threat Intelligence
    • Extensive Integrations
      • IT Security Integrations
      • Hardware Integrations
      • Meraki Integration
      • Cisco Umbrella and SecureX
  • Products
    • Cisco Umbrella Products
      • Cisco Umbrella Cloud Security Service
      • Recursive DNS Services
      • Cisco Umbrella SIG
      • Umbrella Investigate
      • What’s New
    • Product Packages
      • Cisco Umbrella Package Comparison
      • – DNS Security Essentials Package
      • – DNS Security Advantage Package
      • – SIG Essentials Package
      • – SIG Advantage Package
      • Umbrella Support Packages
    • Functionality
      • DNS-Layer Security
      • Secure Web Gateway
      • Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
      • Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
      • Cloud-Delivered Firewall
      • Cloud Malware Protection
      • Remote Browser Isolation (RBI)
    • Man on a laptop with headphones on. He is attending a Cisco Umbrella Live Demo
  • Solutions
    • SASE & SSE Solutions
      • Cisco Umbrella SASE
      • Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
      • What is SASE
      • What is Security Service Edge (SSE)
    • Functionality Solutions
      • Web Content Filtering
      • Secure Direct Internet Access
      • Shadow IT Discovery & App Blocking
      • Fast Incident Response
      • Unified Threat Management
      • Protect Mobile Users
      • Securing Remote and Roaming Users
    • Network Solutions
      • Guest Wi-Fi Security
      • SD-WAN Security
      • Off-Network Endpoint Security
    • Industry Solutions
      • Government and Public Sector Cybersecurity
      • Financial Services Security
      • Cybersecurity for Manufacturing
      • Higher Education Security
      • K-12 Schools Security
      • Healthcare, Retail and Hospitality Security
      • Enterprise Cloud Security
      • Small Business Cybersecurity
  • Resources
    • Content Library
      • Top Resources
      • Cybersecurity Webinars
      • Events
      • Research Reports
      • Case Studies
      • Videos
      • Datasheets
      • eBooks
      • Solution Briefs
    • International Documents
      • Deutsch/German
      • Español/Spanish
      • Français/French
      • Italiano/Italian
      • 日本語/Japanese
    • For Customers
      • Support
      • Customer Success Webinars
      • Cisco Umbrella Studio
    • Get the 2022 Cloud Scurity Comparison Guide
  • Trends & Threats
    • Market Trends
      • Hybrid Workforce
      • Rise of Remote Workers
      • Secure Internet Gateway (SIG)
    • Security Threats
      • How to Stop Phishing Attacks
      • Malware Detection and Protection
      • Ransomware is on the Rise
      • Cryptomining Malware Protection
      • Cybersecurity Threat Landscape
      • Global Cyber Threat Intelligence
      • Cyber Threat Categories and Definitions
    •  
    • Woman connecting confidently to any device anywhere
  • Partners
    • Channel Partners
      • Partner Program
      • Become a Partner
    • Service Providers
      • Secure Connectivity
      • Managed Security for MSSPs
      • Managed IT for MSPs
    •  
    • Person looking down at laptop. They are connecting and working securely
  • Blog
    • News & Product Posts
      • Latest Posts
      • Products & Services
      • Customer Focus
      • Feature Spotlight
    • Cybersecurity Posts
      • Security
      • Threats
      • Cybersecurity Threat Spotlight
      • Research
    •  
    • Register for a webinar - with illustration of connecting securely to the cloud
  • Contact Us
  • Umbrella Login
  • Cloudlock Login
  • Free Trial
Spotlight

A love letter to early adopters

By OpenDNS Team
Posted on February 14, 2013
Updated on March 27, 2020

Share

FacebookTweetLinkedIn

Editor’s note: Serra Boten is a Technical Support Engineer for OpenDNS. A recent transplant from our Vancouver office to our San Francisco headquarters, Serra spends her days providing world-class customer support to Umbrella customers.

Dear early adopters,

I spend my days helping people navigate the murky waters of the technological forefront. My experiences over the past several years have taught me that if you’re an early adopter, challenges are almost inevitable. You might get the fastest new graphics processor before all of your friends, but there’s a good chance your new shiny toy might accidentally eat your address book or refuse to run that multiplayer Skifree emulator you downloaded back in 1997. Things will break, capacities will be blown, bugs will surface, and sadness will occur. But if you’re lucky, the fruits of your frustration will eventually flourish into something amazing that your luddite friends like me will longingly covet while they spin the wheels on their rotary dial phones.

In a world where the Next! Big! Thing! happens on a rapid, 3-month release cycle, I sometimes feel like a luddite. When my iPhone 3GS met an untimely (and wet) end a couple months ago, I begrudgingly upgraded to an iPhone 4, even though I could have gotten the new hotness that is an iPhone 5 for a just small amount more.
It wasn’t that frugality got the best of me. I’m just not an early adopter.

There's a movie on there!

But you, early adopters, are an essential part of what makes the technological world go ’round.

You’re willing to hack, stumble and fight through early release cycles for a chance at eventual triumph. Without you, it would take companies like ours so much longer to work through issues. Without your feedback, the designers, engineers and product managers behind the products you love wouldn’t be able to effectively iterate, adapt, improve, overcome – and most importantly – focus.

Without early adopters and beta testers, Umbrella customers might still be wandering around the first version of the Umbrella Dashboard. When we launched in November 2012, there were bugs. There were features missing. There were parts of the user experience that were confusing. But thanks to early adopters, we’ve been able to find and fix a lot of bugs in a very short period of time. You told us what you liked, what you hated and what you found confusing. You reminded us of features we forgot, and have been ever-so-patient while we’ve worked hard to improve every aspect of the experience. (Case in point: we just rolled out a new policy wizard and a the ability to filter noisy reporting data is coming very soon.)

Our first wave of Umbrella Mobility customers have a special place in my heart. I’ve spent the majority of my waking (and sometimes dreaming) hours since Umbrella’s launch ensuring your roaming laptops are not only up and running, but also encrypted, protected and – most importantly – as reliable as our core DNS infrastructure. Believe it or not, it’s no simple task to design a lightweight security agent that can be flawlessly installed on any laptop, taken off a secure corporate network, and randomly plunked into a network run by cupid-only-knows who, without breaking anything. But that’s what we’re doing well today, thanks in large part to the powerful feedback we received from early adopters. And we’re going to get even better.

Your patience through the hiccups — and let’s be honest, some of the hiccups in the beta may have felt like pants-on-fire, head-smashed-on-the-keyboard moments of omg-why-didn’t-we-realize-that — means more to us than you might ever know.

And this isn’t lip service. We’re a small-but-growing team with huge ambition and long to-do lists. We’re moving fast, trying new things, and thriving on the goal of securing the new everywhere-enterprise reality. But one thing that won’t ever change is how much we love and appreciate our customers. Happy Valentine’s Day, early adopters, and thanks for all you do!

Sincerely yours,
Serra Boten
Technical Support Engineer, OpenDNS

Previous Post:

Previous Article

Next Post:

Next Article

Follow Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Footer Sections

What we make

  • Cloud Security Service
  • DNS-Layer Network Security
  • Secure Web Gateway
  • Security Packages

Who we are

  • Global Cloud Architecture
  • Cloud Network Status
  • Cloud Network Activity
  • OpenDNS is now Umbrella
  • Cisco Umbrella Blog

Learn more

  • Webinars
  • Careers
  • Support
  • Cisco Umbrella Live Demo
  • Contact Sales
Umbrella by Cisco
208.67.222.222+208.67.220.220
2620:119:35::35+2620:119:53::53
Sign up for a Free Trial
  • Cisco Online Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Sitemap

© 2023 Cisco Umbrella