Cloud Marketplaces, Consolidation and Channel Ecosystem – Prem Iyer, Palo Alto Networks

This is texturing TV. Hey guys. Thanks for the throw.

We're here with Premier who is Senior vice president for Global ecosystems at Palo Alto networks and we're talking about the role Market places are now playing in the cloud era to help secure environments Prime. Welcome the show. Thanks, Michael.

Thanks for having me. How is the way that we acquire security software changing in the Cloud area? It seems like there's marketplaces almost everywhere you go and there's Market places have a collection of different Tools in it.

So are we getting a little tool happy or is it just that one of the benefits is made me all these tools that are in a Marketplace are pretty integrated. So things are becoming a little less complex. yeah, you know I think likely asked the the question of the day, right which is we think about this as How do we constantly make it easier for customers to consume?

So if you take a customer point of view? When we were in a world of only Hardware it made sense to leverage a traditional Channel partner of distributor right to get that Hardware maybe have financing, you know, there's inventory. They have to get stock somewhere all these things.

And as the world shifted as we continue to move towards Cloud delivered towards SAS products and applications. Some of those things are the same but some of them are different. So we absolutely have a really critical role which I'm sure we'll talk about with some of those traditional Channel partners and how they play into the new ecosystem.

But we also have a role of an emerging right route to Market and that's the thought Marketplace you've identified because they do centralize a lot of the both Technology Solutions that customers also really want to have procured to deploy to test they make it easy to consume. They make it easy to test they make it easy to go try different things and then they make it easy ultimately to continue to grow their their foot print and within those Technology Solutions by centralizing all one place having easy to procure having having payment methods to be very smooth and be able to work with the manufacturer in that way. So it's not you know, if we said before right this is not something that's coming down the road.

It's not a you know, I'm a American football guy more than a hockey guy but it's not just where the puck is going. It's where the puck is right now. Here in the heart of it where customers are saying.

Hey, you know what? We do want to buy but can we buy through this Cloud Marketplace makes it really easy for us. There is clearly a wave of consolidation happening in the cybersecurity space.

A lot of it is driven by the cloud but one of the nox is always been against centralization is that it kind of limits your options, but maybe as we go forward we found a way to kind of experiment and have our cake but still kind of get the benefits of the consolidation. Yeah, I think it's exactly right. I think you know, this is where The cloud marketplaces have done it.

Right right, which is I don't think we're seeing this very narrow view of what's available. Right? You know, you should proceed, you know, perceivably you could go any customer who's chosen any of the big cloud providers can go to their marketplaces and find the solutions that they're looking for within the wider ecosystem of Technology, of course, you know inside security.

We hope that choice is Palo Alto networks, and we believe that a lot of the outcomes that our Technologies deliver whether it's a cross our Cloud security whether it's across traditional Network and data center security or and or sassy and whether across our Security operation centers Security Solutions that we do deliver higher and better outcomes for clients and our competition, but the point is that the customer does have that choice, right and they can come to the marketplace and and do that testing do that evaluation and not be restricted to only a limited set of options as a as a explore what's best for their environment. We have seen a lot more Focus these days on the total cost of cybersecurity and I think one of the Hidden costs that people don't really focus on enough maybe is integration. All these different point products that you got to stitch together.

If something's in a Marketplace have we essentially validated the integration and the headache is going to be less and the total cost starts to drop. So yeah, this is a really really. Salient one right now and I tell you for that for a couple of reasons right this question.

com and I'm gonna buy a widget and I'll go buy the widget. It'll give me an eight options of widgets and great. I have the week right the widget.

There's no real. com right when you go and buy something for your home. This is more about well on one hand.

You can absolutely do that with Palo Alto networks and Security Solutions broadly across the cloud. We actually have tighter Integrations with those Cloud providers, right and we've launched for example, very recently our next gen firewall as a service offering on some of the big cloud providers. You'll see more of that in the coming months across other ones as well.

We've launched IPS solutions that are Cloud native where a customer can actually click into the cloud console and see follow the networks IPS built right in so that integration is absolutely there right and it makes it A customer feel very confident that these big cloud providers would have a lot of trust and put a lot of commitment to have tested and validated our solutions to make sure it does work as advertised. Right? So that's what on one hand on the other hand because you can use integration a lot of different ways.

I think one of the things we're seeing is Gardner recently put out a report talking about vendor consolidation the security consolidation and in 2020, that was only 29% of Enterprise. They're looking now 75% of Enterprises are looking at this need to consolidate vendors and at first glance I would think oh, you know, that means that it must mean that they're doing it because they want to save money right that the reason they want to actually go do this is to save money, but actually what we find is that's not the case, right? It is is one important thing but one of the other parts of security consolidation is actually increasing your risk posture making sure that actually able to improve that and the actual security outcomes.

What's driving it. Well only Nine percent of the response to Gardener said yeah, we wanted we want to save some money too. Right cost is important.

So integration has a couple different level, you know ways of looking at it one is into the marketplace right are we actually integrating our technology? The other is the integration across our platform and why customers are saying as gardeners suggesting that we do need vendors like Palo Alto networks who created the most comprehensive cybersecurity platform in the world to come together so we can increase security posture at the same time. It is cost.

What becomes then of all those integrators and folks that you refer to in the channel partners and there's a small army of these people. How does their role evolve and oh, yeah users need to think about these things. Yeah, and I think you said to it to two things.

I got caught me right away one is small army. I would say it's a very large army, right? It's massive.

Actually. If you look at our egosystem in the the types of partners that we engage right? Whether it's traditional value added reseller solution provider Distributors, whether it is global system integrators, whether it is our tier one telcos and service providers right those types of Partners, whether they're other isv technology Partners.

There's a massive Army that we built in terms of our ecosystem and political networks and actually play to your second point of what I caught in your question is how do they evolve right in this new world towards Cloud Marketplace? I think that's the key Michael. I think you'll find is there are Partners who are Pace Setters?

Who recognize this shift in technology procurement and how customers want to buy and say where's my real value in the in the new world? And that value is in actually the design the architecture the implementation the configuration the optimization of those Technology Solutions in the market in in customer environments. Once they've been procure it's not only in that transaction motion of the product and how we get that product sold into the customer.

Right? It's all other functions. And so those Pace Setters will do that.

They will make that shift. They are making that shift real time with us right leaning in and saying how do we become your services partner? How do we go help make sure customers are more secure because having a bunch of cloud delivered or at the service solutions sitting in a you know, proverbial back out office or where house doesn't do anything for me if they're not running them and getting the efficacy that those can go that those Solutions can provide wants to deploy so they are making Transition there's another group.

Yes, there are absolutely laggards and it'll take them time to realize that shift is happening. And what we're doing is encouraging this opportunity for them to say look at this huge opportunity much more margin Rich frankly for them that they can create if they wrap that Services up around our product technology, you know, as customers change their procurement. So we definitely think doesn't Evolution and we are helping and leading the way with our partners and a lot of what we've done with our next wave award-winning program, right our Channel program and partner program is doing exactly that is guiding them towards those areas where they can create more opportunity more margin by leveraging some of the specializations and things that we're talking about on helping customers become more secure by using our Solutions.

In this to a degree all but inevitable because we are seeing more automation more artificial intelligence. All these things have to leverage a common data pool to drive the AI models. So is the technology essentially going to force all these issues anyway?

Yeah, I think that's what you're you're partly seeing. If you call it, you know, I know we started this with talking about Cloud marketplaces right and in some I mean AI notwithstanding for a moment that is the technology Evolution, right that is is shaping this and and kind of forcing the discussion as you say so yes, but I would suggest it's not only AI dependent I would suggest that it's actually already started with the development of these marketplaces being the the easy button, you know call it for a customer to say hey, I want to try Palatine networks Cloud security Prisma Cloud. I want to try Prisma access sassy with Palo Alto networks.

I want to try this, you know AI built, you know stock solution to palatal around cortex and how we can actually reduce the noise dramatically by leveraging our Solutions. I can go do that because the cloud Marketplace actually makes it easy for me to go do that. Right?

So I don't know it's AI dependent. I think AI would be just another Catalyst towards it. Let's say that right but it's something that's actually already started that trend.

Is the proof of concept all but dead then because now I can just download stuff and experiment with it and try it before I buy a kind of thing and maybe I don't need to set up all these pocs that used to take months. So I don't I don't think that goes away right Michael. I think what you're seeing is just a ability to gain speed towards that a POC to ability to get an efficiency and how we're able to see the results of what may have taken weeks of months of planning to understand what success criteria looks like and how do I go ahead and get this technology in house and get it now.

This is exactly kind of tying back some of the stuff you're talking about earlier around the partner Revolution, right? Customer now I'm able to say okay. I can try, you know more and more Apollo to network security capabilities more quickly.

I still need someone to go help me get it operation. I still need someone to actually make sure that it's working correctly and that a maximizing my or maximizing really optimizing right that was Technologies to the best potential so I can actually see do I need this so I don't have the people that goes away. I think what we're saying is we're actually probably able to do more of them faster and able to show outcomes to customers in a more agile fashion because of their ability to cure differently.

You think ultimately will become easier to do defense in depth because of that approach because historically everybody had a firewall and an endpoint protection system, but then after that the list of things they had drops off dramatically and part of it was just it was too hard to put it all together. So when we get to the point where you know, rather than just kind of talking about the fence and depth that becomes more of a default option, Yeah, so I think this is an area where if you look again at what kind of Palo Alto Network strategy has been around this and our vision for what we can offer customers. I will start with.

We don't. Claim to solve every problem in cybersecurity for every customer what we do claim Michael is that across the data center Network across the public cloud and across the security Operation Center. We have the most comprehensive cybersecurity platform addressing the largest percentage of the cyber security threat to Enterprises then anybody else.

It's just a fact it's not it it's not my opinion. You're you know, if you just go look if we're going through each of the issues that someone may face whether is cloud security posture Management in the cloud or infrastructure entitlement management or it's you know iot security or it is Sassy or it is, you know, orchestration automation inside the song or it is xdr. Just all of them have the box not just checked with Palo Alto networks, but Market leading right in 13 or 17 recognitions 13 categories.

Excuse me, something recognitions by on all those areas. So I think what I would say is on your defense and depth question is it now we can just say to a customer Mr. And Mrs.

Customer look you're able to now. Sample test evaluate deploy quickly the best of breed Technology Solutions in cybersecurity in a singular platform across those areas. I talked about in Cloud stock and data center from Palo Alto networks in a way that can deliver outcomes to you quickly.

So you can make a decision on is this best for me and does this actually improve my world posture which is the goal for us. Anyway as we think about our vision of making every day safer than the day before so that's what I would tell you on defense and depth is that again? It's getting to speed and the ability to show the outcome and efficacy of that more than changing.

You know how person approaches particularly getting to defensive All right, folks they say there's an app for everything cybersecurity is no different crime. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you very much.

Michael. Appreciate the time. All right back to you guys in the studio.