Security software and hardware company Sophos has recently been recognized as a leader in the field of threat management by American research and advisory firm Gartner.
Sophos was rated as one of the “leaders” in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management report. The Magic Quadrant (MQ) is a series of market research reports that contain a quantitative analysis of the market and its direction. The MQ consists of an assessment of the completeness of a company’s vision as well as the company’s ability to execute its vision.
In order to be recognised in the Leaders Quadrant, a company must be at the forefront of its field and make and sell products that cater to medium-sized businesses. The products must support multiple features and have reporting and management capability that are easy to use. As Gartner explains, “Vendors in this quadrant lead the market in offering new safeguarding features, and in enabling customers to deploy them inexpensively without significantly affecting the end-user experience or increasing staffing burdens.”
Companies rated as Leaders must also have an excellent track record in avoiding and resolving security vulnerabilities in their products, its products must be easy to manage and administer, and they must be dependable and include consistent throughput.
Three companies have been recognized in the latest report, although Sophos is the only IT company to be recognized as a leader in three security MQ reports, the other two being the Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms in February of this year and the Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection Solutions in September 2015.
Brett Myroff, MD of Sophos distributor, Netxactics explained that “Network security is a critical pillar in protecting against today’s sophisticated and persistent threats – and is one of the fastest growing market segments in IT security.” He went on to say, “Sophos’ continued recognition as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant validates its position at the forefront of this important and growing market.”
Sophos has a vision of providing a synchronized security platform “that directly shares threat intelligence and the health status of all security products.” The company’s strategy ensures it delivers more advanced levels of protection for its customers regardless of the size of their organization. Myroff explained that this makes endpoint and network security much easier to manage.
The recognition of Sophos as a leader in the field of network security is backed up with excellent growth. In the last financial year, Sophos’ network security billings grew by 27.5%, considerably higher than the 7% market growth during the same period.