As more enterprises move to the cloud, the cat-and-mouse game between cybersecurity professionals and cybercriminals is rising to a fever pitch.
Per McKinsey & Company, the total addressable market for cybersecurity solutions is estimated to explode to $1.5 trillion and $2.0 trillion by 2028.
Big tech is racing to acquire the best talent and technology in the space, creating an unprecedented cybersecurity land grab at a scale so massive that it is difficult to comprehend the competitive ramifications.
The Unclaimed Treasure of Cybersecurity
Since 90% of the market share upside is currently unclaimed, with no single player dominating more than 10% of it, Cybersecurity is one of the most strategically significant and rapidly growing sectors in the digital economy.
The companies that prevail will become trillion-dollar unicorns explaining why Cisco bet the farm on acquiring cybersecurity firm Splunk for $28 billion in September 2023.
The all-cash deal is the largest in the company’s history, representing 13% of Cisco’s market cap and definitively demonstrating its commitment to shifting strategic focus away from its core business in traditional networking to software and cloud services.
Splunk, which helps businesses monitor their data and avoid hacks, adds to Cisco’s growing ambitions in cybersecurity as the public cloud continues to cannibalize its traditional computer networking business.
The Future of Networking Is In the Cloud
By moving boldly to adapt and evolve to the new cloud infrastructure, leaders can completely reinvent Cisco as a powerhouse in this emerging market, unshackling itself from old-school networking hardware in the process.
Unlike its rivals who are still tied to legacy hardware, Cisco can leverage its cloud-native solutions, such as Cisco Cloud ACI, Cisco Intersight, and Cisco Webex, to deliver superior performance, security, and collaboration to its customers.
It also has the advantage of being cloud platform agnostic as it has no vested interest in pushing its own proprietary cloud service because it doesn’t own or operate one.
Neutral Switzerland Position
Choosing not to be a cloud storage provider gives Cisco a leg up on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform in sales and marketing to enterprise customers who want the freedom to pick their own platform and get best-of-breed cybersecurity without being tethered to a storage service.
Since Cisco’s cloud solutions are designed to work with any cloud provider, including AWS, as well as on-premises and hybrid deployments, Cisco’s strategy to be cloud-neutral and enable customers to have a consistent and secure application experience across all their clouds has a ton of merit.
It’s difficult to argue that the Cisco Splunk acquisition isn’t the tip of the spear for an unstoppable trend of increasing demand and investment in cybersecurity.
As more enterprises adopt the public cloud for its scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency, their need to evolve cybersecurity practices and models to protect their data and applications in the cloud grows exponentially.
Who Will Win The Tech Security War?
The stakes are so high, that this segment will go down in tech history as one of the most pivotal and hard-fought wars. Cisco will be going head to head with Palo Alto Networks’ comprehensive security platform that includes state-of-the-art firewalls, cloud security, endpoint protection, and threat intelligence.
Meanwhile, Fortinet is globally respected for its fast and scalable network security appliances that can handle large volumes of traffic, and mighty Microsoft with its vast customer base and robust ecosystem offers a full range of industrial-strength security products and services integrated with its popular cloud platform.
The cybersecurity industry is a lucrative and fast-growing market, that is vital one for the security and stability of the digital world.
As cyberattacks become more sophisticated and frequent, the demand for effective and affordable cybersecurity solutions will only increase.
Cybersecurity: A Booming Industry With Few Future Kings
But not all cybersecurity companies are equally capable of meeting this challenge. Only a few dominant players, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, have the resources, expertise, and vision to harness the virtually unlimited potential for growth and innovation in the cybersecurity industry.
These emerging market leaders are paving the way in developing and delivering cutting-edge solutions that protect organizations and individuals from cyber threats, while also creating new opportunities for value creation and social impact.
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