undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmarcusb1y ago0 comments

> Microsoft is the Microsoft of the enterprise security market, more or less. They completely dominate email, largely dominate identity, have a plurality if not a majority on endpoint, but don't compete in network.

The most recent figures I’ve seen are that Microsoft has around 25% of the endpoint market[0], which is a plurality because the market is so fragmented. Proofpoint claims around 24% of the email security market[1].

The only security market you can say they “dominate” is identity, if you ignore the MFA market. AD is, at least, almost everywhere.

> This was a dedicated effort by CrowdStrike working with analysts back in 2017-2018.

That’s one interpretation of events. It’s also completely orthogonal to what I wrote.

0 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/08/21/mic...

1 - https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/email-and-cloud-threats/p...

0 comments

FreakLegion1y ago

> Proofpoint claims around 24% of the email security market

Proofpoint is the clear number two, but Microsoft always sits behind Proofpoint (and Mimecast, IronPort, etc.). They're also always in front of Abnormal and other API-only options. Every big company has E5 with Defender for Office 365 on their email, and the rest either still have E5 or they have EOP.

> That’s one interpretation of events.

In 2017 EPP and EDR were distinct categories, and CrowdStrike had a big internal initiative (driven top-down by Kurtz, but managed by a PM director under Rod Murchison) to merge them, while Cylance and others that had separate SKUs for each area worked to keep them apart. CrowdStrike was more effective.

I mentioned this because it wasn't just a natural market convergence; B2B companies spend absurd amounts of money with the Gartners and Forresters of the world to align their products with line items in budgets. It's capitalism all the way down.

Not speculating on anything here. I was at or worked closely with all of the companies mentioned in both posts.

marcus0x621y ago

You like to make absolute statements like “always”, but I know of large organizations (Fortune 500) that use Proofpoint, but not Microsoft email security. And in endpoint, there are shops that license defender as part of an EA, but don’t use it - of course, those seats go into the Forrester figures that Microsoft likes to tout.

FreakLegion1y ago

Sure, I can enumerate the handful of the Fortune 500 that don't use Microsoft. Palo Alto Networks, for example, has TAP sitting in front of Google. In PANW's case it's because of a broader partnership Nikesh put together with Google in 2018, which also involved moving from AWS to GCP. This is stupendously uncommon, though.

If you were to look through the System -> Inbound Mail settings for every PPS customer, you'd find a sea of x.mail.protection.outlook.com, some on-prem Exchange servers, and practically nothing else. I'm comfortable with "always" as a description of this state of affairs, but you do you.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsmarcusb1y ago0 comments

The only security market you can say they “dominate” is identity, if you ignore the MFA market. AD is, at least, almost everywhere.

> This was a dedicated effort by CrowdStrike working with analysts back in 2017-2018.

That’s one interpretation of events. It’s also completely orthogonal to what I wrote.

0 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/08/21/mic...

1 - https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/email-and-cloud-threats/p...

0 comments

FreakLegion1y ago

> Proofpoint claims around 24% of the email security market

> That’s one interpretation of events.

Not speculating on anything here. I was at or worked closely with all of the companies mentioned in both posts.

marcus0x621y ago

FreakLegion1y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse