BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Prepare For Knock-Down, Drag-Out Brawls Between Security Contenders IBM, Dell, Cisco And Others

This article is more than 8 years old.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the cybersecurity heavyweight division's contenders for 2016. These companies will duke it out for the lion's share of the fastest growing sector of the tech industry.

The worldwide cybersecurity industry is defined by market sizing estimates that range from $77 billion in 2015 to $170 billion by 2020.

In 2016, cybersecurity's major brands will go up against each other in head-to-head battles in front of a global audience of corporate board members and CEOs at Fortune 500 and Global 2000 corporations, CISOs (Chief Information Security Officers), IT security professionals, members of the media, and watchers from all industries.

We expect the cybersecurity vendors to let it all hang out in 2016, throwing their best marketing spin at each other and the media --- groundbreaking product announcements, press releases, white papers, awards, patents, analyst claims, and more.

The VCs have been hyping the cybersecurity space and investing billions in to startups who may emerge as the next contenders in 2017.

A look at the top four cybersecurity heavyweight contenders:

1) Fighting out of Armonk, N.Y., IBM Corp.'s (NYSE: IBM) $1.2 billion IBM Security business is considered the third largest enterprise security player by analyst firm Gartner. Brendan Hannigan is GM at IBM Security. Hannigan joined IBM when it acquired security vendor Q1 Labs, where he was President and CEO. IBM is a formidable competitor at enterprises of all sizes. Under pressure from corporate boards, do cyber frightened CISOs and CEOs feel like nobody gets fired for going with IBM to protect them? It remains to be seen if IBM Security - which makes up only 1.5% to 2% of IBM's total revenues and is only a blip on their earnings - can break out of IBM's corporate shadow which has reported losses for the past 13 quarters.

2) Round Rock, Texas' privately held Dell Inc. enters the ring on the heels of announcing their acquisition of EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC) in a deal worth an eye-popping $67 billion. The acquisition includes EMC's RSA, one of the oldest and most respected security brands in the industry... including the widely popular RSA Conference. Dell has also filed confidentially for an IPO of it’s cybersecurity unit SecureWorks. SecureWorks could be trading by the end of this year, and may be worth up to $2 billion. It will be interesting to see if SecureWorks adds more muscle by taking over RSA, which sounds like a logical move for the cybersecurity spin-out. If not, you can still be sure that Dell will be throwing a left-right combination at CISOs and the media, making sure they feel the full power of their RSA and SecureWorks brands. Mike Cote is the VP and GM who heads up Dell's SecureWorks. He was Chairman, CEO and President at SecureWorks before Dell took them over. Amit Yoran is the President at RSA, the security division of EMC. He was previously founder and CEO at NetWitness, who was acquired by RSA.

3) Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), headquartered in San Jose, Calif. and originally founded in San Francisco, is a networking giant who has turned their Cisco Security Business Group in to a powerhouse of its own. Cisco's big move in to the cybersecurity space came in 2013 with their $2.7 billion acquisition of SourceFire. They followed that with a string of impressive security acquisitions including their $635 million purchase of OpenDNS this past summer, and an announcement earlier this week that they are acquiring Lancope, Inc. for $452 million. David Goeckeler is SVP and GM at Cisco's Security Business Group. Goeckeler is a veteran of 14 years at Cisco, and was most recently a VP of product and platform engineering for the company's network and content security platforms and products.

4) Santa Clara, Calif. based Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:PANW) is the high-flying network security firewall vendor who Mad Money and The Street's Jim Cramer is constantly talking up to investors - and there's a reason... fiscal year 2015 billings grew 58 percent year-over-year to $1.2 billion. 2016 may be the break-out year for Palo Alto Networks if they continue growing and expand their product offerings from network security to application security and more, becoming an end-to-end security solutions provider. The self-proclaimed "next generation security company" is led by Chairman, CEO and President Mark McLaughlin, who previously served as President and CEO at Verisign.

The rest of the heavyweight field is impressive and anyone of these companies is capable of a surprise knock-out, and is arguably a strategic acquisition or two away from becoming a leading contender.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), out of Bethesda, Md., is the world's largest defense contractor and has been protecting enterprises from cyber-attacks for the past 10 years. The U.S. federal government has budgeted $14 billion for cybersecurity in 2016, and commercial enterprises are increasingly turning to cyber service providers with military backgrounds. Lockheed's cybersecurity unit has thousands of customers across all industries.

Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) , with its headquarters in Waltham, Mass., looked less like a stodgy top five defense contractor and more like a hot mover and shaker when it spun off its cyber business and invested $1.9 billion for Websense (NASDAQ:WBSN) - to create a new commercial cybersecurity company. Currently named Raytheon| Websense, and based out of Austin, Texas, the joint venture appears to be figuring out its messaging and stitching the two brands together.

FireEye (NASDAQ:FEYE), from Milpitas, Calif., is the de-facto "pure-play" cybersecurity entrant. They were born and raised as a cybersecurity product company, and expanded into cyber services with their $1 billion acquisition of consulting firm Mandiant in 2014. FireEye has an impressive end-to-end lineup of cybersecurity products and services for commercial enterprises of all sizes, and federal agencies. FireEye looks like a light-heavyweight just-turned-heavyweight who is going up against much larger and stronger competitors. When FireEye squares off against IBM in larger venues for seven-figure deals, will they win those fights?

Mountain View, Calif. based Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) is the world's largest security software company, according to Gartner.  Symantec sold its Veritas business earlier this year and in a throwback to the past, recast itself as a pure-play security company. But the company still has a branding issue to resolve. They are well known for their Norton line of consumer anti-virus software. They pitch the Symantec Cloud service to small-to-mid-sized businesses, and an advanced threat protection message to large enterprises. If Symantec can figure out how to put the full weight of their company behind a single brand message, then they might be the comeback heavyweight of the year in 2016.

Intel Corp. entered the security sector in a big way with their $7.6 billion acquisition of McAfee in 2010. Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich announced in early 2014 that the McAfee brand name would be replaced by Intel Security. But as we are about to enter 2016, the McAfee name is still splashed all over the Intel Security Group brand and website. Ask a CIO or IT professional which name they identify more closely with when it comes to security - Intel or McAfee - and chances are they'll say McAfee. Like Symantec, Intel has a big consumer anti-virus business and somewhat of an identity crisis. Surely Intel will figure out how to use its marquee name in order to clear up any confusion around the security business.

Who do you think will be the top cybersecurity slugger in 2016? Stay tuned and we'll report back towards the end of Q1 2016 with some commentary on the early fight results.