Cisco’s Readying Big XDR and Security Suite Announcements

Posted byRich Freeman

Cisco briefed the media today on its evolving strategy to transform itself from a networking mainstay with security products too into a “connect and protect” leader in both networking and security. I’ll have more about what the company said in my regular post this Friday, but am sharing three especially newsworthy items now in this first-ever (and possibly last-ever) Channelholic “Tuesday Bonus Post” as well.

Thanks for reading Channelholic! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

1. Cisco will be making “some really exciting announcements” about an XDR solution during the RSA Conference in San Francisco later this month, according to Shawn Yuskaitis, security director and global partner and routes-to-market sales acceleration executive at Cisco.

XDR, of course, is the security segment that everyone who’s anyone—including Sophos, Trend Micro, and WatchGuard most recently—is getting into, perhaps because 54.5% of organizations were already on track to have an XDR solution in place by the end of last year, according to Gartner.

Last year’s RSA Conference, meanwhile, is where Cisco first unveiled its big “Security Cloud” strategy, which it fleshed out some more in February.

2. Also coming during the RSA show will be details on exactly how Cisco plans to consolidate what are today 27 separate security solutions into just three integrated suites. Think of this as the latest manifestation of an ongoing campaign to make life easier for customers and partners that has already replaced 12 different sales teams with just four.

3. Cisco’s security offerings are not just for large businesses. SMBs are a “big priority” too, according to Oliver Tuszik, senior vice president of partner sales and general manager of routes to market at Cisco (pictured), because it’s been “outperforming the rest of Cisco for a while.”

Indeed, per reporting I did for ChannelPro last November, the company’s SMB revenue totals over $4 billion annually now and is climbing close to 30% year over year. Cisco sees room for additional growth.

“We still have a smaller market share there, where our market share in some of the other markets is pretty big already,” Tuszik said this morning. As a result, he added, “we are investing heavily in this segment in marketing, but also in programs and solutions,” including SMB-oriented bundles and collaborative marketing efforts with leading distributors.

Tune in Friday for further thoughts on today’s presentation.