Infonetics Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard

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Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard

Report Excerpts

September 2014

INFONETICS RESEARCH REPORT EXCERPTS

Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard: Excerpts Reprinted with permission from Infonetics Research. © 2014 Infonetics Research, Inc.

Table of Contents

TOP TAKEAWAYS: CISCO LEADS, BUT HUNGRY CHALLENGERS ARE MAKING BIG MOVES 1

PORTFOLIO OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES COVERED 2

SCORECARD RESULTS 3

Top 3 Vendors by Criterion 5

VENDOR PROFILES 5

#1 Cisco 5

Markets and Technology Segments 6

Score Analysis 6

Strengths and Weaknesses 7

Bottom Line 7

BOTTOM LINE 7

METHODOLOGY 8

REPORT AUTHOR 10

ABOUT INFONETICS RESEARCH 10

REPORT REPRINTS AND CUSTOM RESEARCH 10

List of Exhibits

Exhibit 1 Overall Scores for the Top 8 Network and Content Security Vendors 1

Exhibit 2 Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard Summary 3

Exhibit 3 Score Composition for Top 8 Network and Content Security Vendors 4

Exhibit 4 Top 3 Network and Content Security Vendors by Criterion 5

Exhibit 5 Cisco’s Scores vs. Average Scores of All 8 Vendors 6

1 Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard: Excerpts Reprinted with permission from Infonetics Research. © 2014 Infonetics Research, Inc.

TOP TAKEAWAYS: CISCO LEADS, BUT HUNGRY CHALLENGERS ARE MAKING BIG MOVES

This service profiles, analyzes, and ranks the 8 largest global vendors of network and content security solutions. We chose the 8 vendors who had product offerings in network and content security and 2013 revenue of $240M or more.

To eliminate subjective scoring and accurately and fairly evaluate vendors, we established 8 criteria using actual data and metrics, including market share data, publicly available financial data, and buyer feedback. Criteria include market share, market share momentum, financials, solution breadth, and 4 key metrics from our survey research on security (security, technology innovation, product reliability, and service and support).

McAfee is second on the strength of a good market share position, solid financials (thanks Intel!), a broad product portfolio, and excellent scores in the end-user metrics from our survey data (aided by strong brand awareness since McAfee is a household name for consumers and business buyers).

Check Point is in third, with great performance in market share and financials, though they have room to improve when it comes to end-user perception; they score below average in all 4 survey-based categories.

Exhibit 1 Overall Scores for the Top 8 Network and Content Security Vendors

0

1

2

3

4

5

Cisco McAfee Check Point Fortinet Juniper Palo AltoNetworks

Blue Coat DellSonicWALL


PORTFOLIO OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES COVERED

Network and content security products are the first line of defense for many organizations looking to protect networks, users, applications, and data, and a group of security vendors focusing on delivering network and content security products have emerged over the last 20 years and become critical technology suppliers to enterprises and service providers worldwide. This scorecard profiles, analyzes, and ranks the 8 leading vendors of network and content security products. The key product categories covered in this report are:

Network security:

● Integrated security appliances and software

● SSL VPN

● IDS/IPS

● DDoS

Content security:

● Web security

● Mail security

Please see “Methodology” (excerpted methodology is at the end of this document; the full version, including detailed descriptions of the categories and scoring process, is available from Infonetics Research).


SCORECARD RESULTS

The table below summarizes the 8 vendors’ scores and revenue. We’ll discuss the individual vendors in more detail in the profile sections of the report.

Exhibit 2 Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard Summary

Rank

Vendor

Score

2013 Revenue

Score Analysis

1 Cisco 4.5 $2,457M Scored above 4 in every category with perfect scores of 5 in financial and market share

2 McAfee 3.8 $798M A broad product portfolio and strong financials due to Intel ownership bolster McAfee’s score

3 Check Point 3.5 $918M Solid scores in solution breadth, financials, market share, and momentum keep Check Point in the top 3

4 Fortinet 3.4 $444M Fortinet has strong share momentum and a broad offering

5 Juniper 3.2 $565M Strong share and solution breadth are offset by weak share momentum

6 Palo Alto Networks 3.0 $341M Highest share momentum of the group, held back temporarily by financial score due to patent lawsuit Juniper settlement

7 Blue Coat 2.9 $401M Good share momentum and solution breadth due to acquisitions over the last 18 months but held back by financial and survey category scores

8 Dell SonicWALL 2.7 $245M Middle-of-the road scores overall, but solid share momentum (over 3)


The next chart details the individual criteria scores making up the total score.

Exhibit 3 Score Composition for Top 8 Network and Content Security Vendors

0

1

2

3

4

5

Cisco McAfee Check Point Fortinet Juniper Palo AltoNetworks

Blue Coat DellSonicWALL

Market share Market share momentum FinancialsSolution breadth Security* Technology innovation*Product reliability* Service and support*

*Score is based on survey research


Top 3 Vendors by Criterion

Another way to analyze leadership is to look at the top rankings in each of the 8 scoring criteria (see table below). Not surprisingly, Cisco shows up the most in the top 3 table (showing up among the top 3 in all criteria, and #1 in 6 of 8 criteria). What really stands out beyond that is Palo Alto’s first place finish in market share momentum (which should surprise nobody, considering how much the company has been outgrowing the competition in their primary space, the integrated appliance market). Also notable is that McAfee does quite well in all of our survey-based criteria; they’ve generated significant goodwill (and brand awareness) as a leading provider of anti-virus technology and volumes of threat research, and this has significant potential value.

Exhibit 4 Top 3 Network and Content Security Vendors by Criterion

VENDOR PROFILES

#1 Cisco

Cisco is one of the best-known telecom and datacom equipment manufacturers globally, targeting service providers, enterprises of all sizes, and consumers. Cisco’s fiscal year 2013 revenue was US$48.6B.

Cisco built their security portfolio through internal development and acquisition over the last 16 years, and they’ve been busy in the last 18 months. In 2013 they acquired 2 security firms: Cognitive Security for an unknown amount and Sourcefire for approximately US$2.7B. Also, in 2014 they acquired ThreatGrid for an undisclosed amount to enhance their Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) portfolio, a solution they obtained as a result of their Sourcefire acquisition.


Markets and Technology Segments

Cisco has a vast security product portfolio that spans firewall, intrusion prevention, remote access, unified clients, network admission control (a suite of access control and authentication solutions), web and mail security, advanced threat protection solutions, and data center and virtualized security solutions.

They have products in every segment we track in this service outside of standalone DDoS mitigation (they EOL’d their Guard DDoS mitigation product in 2008). They have multiple integrated appliance offerings (traditional Cisco ASA firewalls and Sourcefire’s NGFW products), multiple standalone IPS solutions (again a mix of existing Cisco products and new Sourcefire products), standalone SSL VPN gateways, and web and mail security gateways (courtesy of their IronPort acquisition).

Score Analysis

Cisco has the highest score overall and above-average scores in every single category. They have strong fundamentals (market share, share momentum, and financials), a very broad product portfolio (they have significant share in nearly every segment we track in this report), and they receive excellent buyer feedback in our surveys. They’re an example of a large network infrastructure company who has decided to put their significant resources behind building a serious security business, and over the last 16 years have built themselves into the market leader.

Exhibit 5 Cisco’s Scores vs. Average Scores of All 8 Vendors

0

1

2

3

4

5

Marketshare

Market sharemomentum

Financials Solutionbreadth

Technologyinnovation

Security Productreliability

Service andsupport

Weightedtotal

Cisco 2013 average score


Strengths and Weaknesses

As discussed, Cisco’s overall size, significant share in most of the markets we track in this report, excellent brand strength (not just in security, but in nearly all areas of their business, including networking and communications) and comprehensive product portfolio help them stay ahead of the pack. They have also been involved in developing security solutions for data centers and other virtualized environments for several years, and as the market for security solutions starts to move toward virtualized solutions, they’re positioned to take advantage of the transition.

In addition to the products, they have a strong threat research and intelligence capability, and buyer perception of security vendors moving forward will be significantly influenced by how deeply involved in conducting threat research and publishing meaningful threat reports, which Cisco is placing serious resources behind. We expect this investment will pay off in the future, helping keep the survey-based scores in this report high.

They do have some key issues to confront over the next several years; multiple acquisitions have left them with a mountain of technology and products to rationalize. They need to carefully streamline their product offering so they put their best foot forward (with the right product) in each product segment. This means resolving overlaps between existing Cisco products and the Sourcefire products they acquired and finding ways to integrate the new advanced threat protection platforms they’ve acquired recently into their overall product portfolio. Complex product portfolios are challenging for customers and resellers and can cause decision-making delays and create openings for the competition.

Bottom Line

Cisco is the clear leader in the network and content security space, and we don’t expect this to change in the next year, but the lead isn’t necessarily insurmountable. Unfortunately for the competition, it will take some ingredients that are hard to acquire to pass Cisco; namely the brand strength and strong financials that come with being one of the largest networking and telecom equipment suppliers in the world—a supplier that also happens to be interested in building market-leading security solutions.

BOTTOM LINE

The network and content security space is complex; there are many vendors and countless market forces all pushing and pulling on those vendors. Though Cisco has stiff competition in a variety of the criteria we cover in this report, they have a strong lead in market share (their revenue is more than 2.5x their next closest competitor’s) that should keep them on top for the next year. They might not be toppled, but there are more than a few vendors (namely Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Check Point) eating into their growth potential, and some wildcard vendors have built disruptive product portfolios that could lead to explosive growth in revenue and increases in their scores in future versions of this report.


METHODOLOGY

This scorecard includes Blue Coat, Check Point, Cisco, Dell SonicWALL, Fortinet, Juniper, McAfee, and Palo Alto Networks; these are the top 8 network and content security vendors, each with $240M or more in 2013 network and content security product revenue and significant product offerings in network (integrated security appliances, IDS/IPS, SSL VPN, DDoS) and content (web and mail) security.

We evaluate the top 8 vendors in 8 criteria using actual data and metrics. For each criterion, we scored vendors on a 5-point scale, with 1 being the lowest possible score, 3 being an average score, and 5 being a perfect score. Specifically, we evaluated vendors on the following:

● Market share and market share momentum: a measure of how successfully a company has penetrated its target markets; having significant market share creates awareness with buyers, improves scale, and reassures buyers that companies are here to stay for the long term; some RFPs require vendors to meet certain market share thresholds to ensure vendor viability; successful vendors will have above-average market share that is increasing year over year

● Market share: vendors’ percentage share of network and content security product revenue

● Market share momentum: changes in revenue market share over time

● Financials: an analysis of a vendor’s financials; a strong financial position improves long-term viability and allows a company to stay ahead of the competition by investing in R&D and/or acquiring other companies/technologies; we base the score on the Altman Z-score non-manufacturing model

● Solution breadth: a measure of how many network and content security product segments a vendor addresses; a broader solution set improves a vendor's potential and efficiency of its operations and allows it to differentiate by innovating across segments; we calculated scores based on whether a vendor participates in a given sub-segment of the market, and its relative revenue contribution to the overall market

● Buyer feedback on security, technology innovation, product reliability, and service/support: assessments of a vendor’s performance by buyers, based on interviews we conduct with hundreds of end-users every year

Based on the scores for each of the 8 criteria, we created a single composite vendor score, using the same 5-point scale, and weighted the individual criterion based on its importance in the buying process.


The information in this report is based on findings from multiple Infonetics Research services, including:

● Market share, size, and forecasts

● Network Security Appliances and Software Quarterly Worldwide and Regional Market Share, Size, and Forecasts

● Content Security Gateway Appliances, Software, and SaaS Quarterly Worldwide and Regional Market Share, Size, and Forecasts

● DDoS Prevention Appliances Quarterly Worldwide and Regional Market Share, Size, and Forecasts

● Survey-based research

● Next Generation Threat Prevention Strategies and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey

● Data Center Security Strategies and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey


REPORT AUTHOR

Jeff Wilson

Principal Analyst, Security

Infonetics Research

+1 408.583.3337 | [email protected]

Twitter: @securityjeff

ABOUT INFONETICS RESEARCH

Infonetics Research is an international market research and consulting analyst firm serving the communications industry since 1990. A leader in defining and tracking emerging and established technologies in all world regions, Infonetics helps clients plan, strategize, and compete more effectively.

REPORT REPRINTS AND CUSTOM RESEARCH

To learn about distributing excerpts from Infonetics reports or custom research, please contact: North America (West) and Asia Pacific Larry Howard, Vice President, [email protected], +1 408.583.3335 North America (East, Midwest, Texas), Latin America and EMEA Scott Coyne, Senior Account Director, [email protected], +1 408.583.3395 Greater China and Southeast Asia 大中华区及东南亚地区 Jeffrey Song, Market Analyst 市场分析师及客户经理 [email protected], +86 21.3919.8505