Bank of America Merrill Lynch / Tal Liani
Networking Security Key takeaways from the 2017 RSA conference
We recently attended the RSA conference and met the management teams of Blackberry, Barracuda, Check Point, CyberArk, FireEye, Fortinet, A10 Networks, Gigamon, and several private vendors. We note 4 key themes; 1) the endpoint market evolution continues, 2) platform consolidation remains a key investment theme, 3) micro-segmentation is becoming more broadly adopted, and 4) the jury is still out on the winners in the CASB market.
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Key takeaways from company meetings Blackberry – security DNA across a number of product efforts
We hosted a meeting with Blackberry’s Chief Security Officer David Kleidermacher and dug into the company’s security strategy and priorities. Management emphasized Blackberry’s experience in security (ie. long relationships with large financial institutions), innovation (significant patent portfolio), and assurance (ie. Government and industry certifications). Despite Blackberry’s struggles in hardware, the company’s rich history in security underpins each area of its software strategy: enterprise software, QNX/IoT, and secure Android for handsets. At a high level, Blackberry’s strategy addresses the security risks around endpoints and users, but with a data-centric approach. For example, the Work Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) platform protects data on mobile devices, while the Workspaces product (formerly Watchdox) protects data in transit. Periphery enterprise applications, which extend security efforts beyond EMM, would include applications such as Athoc to manage secure crisis communications, identity and access management, and secure messaging. Separately, the QNX secure operating system is currently leveraged in autos and asset tracking (currently for trucking fleets and potentially for broader IoT applications). Management believes QNX remains well-positioned as a traditional auto OS and potentially gain content share as a broader end-to-end secure system for connected cars. Lastly, Blackberry’s security expertise also underpins the hardware strategy pivot to software licensing (ie. offering a more secure Android).