Nov 12 2020 By Sophos In a move that we believe highlights our ongoing commitment to innovation and market leadership, Gartner has named Sophos as one of only two Visionaries among 17 vendors included in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls.

Gartner Names Sophos a “Visionary” in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls. If you aren’t familiar with the Gartner Magic Quadrant, it’s a tool used by business leaders to help make better-informed product purchasing decisions. Many prospects use the Magic Quadrant as a tool to shortlist products for closer review. Sophos has announced that Gartner has once again positioned Sophos as a Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms. According to the company, their placement in the Gartner Magic Quadrant is driven by its strong endpoint protection, real-world endpoint detection and response (EDR) usability, as well as its unifying platform, Sophos Central. Sophos named a Visionary in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls November 18, 2020 - 4 minutes read. In a move that we believe highlights our ongoing commitment to innovation and market leadership, Gartner has named Sophos as one of only two Visionaries among 18 vendors included in the 2020 Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls.

If you aren’t familiar with the Gartner Magic Quadrant, it’s a tool used by business leaders to help make better-informed product purchasing decisions. Many prospects use the Magic Quadrant as a tool to shortlist products for closer review. Inclusion in the Magic Quadrant is essentially a verification that the proposed solution is an industry leader and can deliver on the promises made.

This year’s Magic Quadrant has been awaited with particular interest as two former categories, namely ‘UTM Firewall’ and ‘Enterprise Firewall’ were merged into the single entry of ‘Network Firewall’ back in 2019 and the shockwaves continue to ripple through the industry as vendors jockey for position in the new format. You’ve already seen the punchline, so there aren’t any spoilers here: this year Sophos has been listed as a Visionary in the network firewall space, but what does that mean and how can we best use this news?

Well, before we can discuss this in any depth, it’s important to understand exactly what is in-scope for this market category. Gartner defines the network firewall market as composed primarily of firewalls offering bidirectional controls (both egress and ingress) for securing network; a market which has grown 11.1% since the last quadrant was published a year ago. These networks can be on-premises, hybrid (on-premises and cloud), public cloud, or private cloud. Products in this category should have the capability to support one or more firewall deployment use cases, such as perimeter, small and midsize businesses (SMBs), data centre, cloud, and distributed offices. Importantly, there is no distinction on the size of the consumer, which is a big departure from the older system where the UTM quadrant was aimed more at the small-to-medium enterprise, leaving the Enterprise Firewall quadrant to focus specifically on the needs of the larger organisation.

There are 17 protagonists in this year’s quadrant. Some are relatively unknown, while others are household names (at least in this sector).

Parallels for mac student discount. Sophos is one of only two vendors named a Visionary. We see this as clear recognition of our continued commitment to innovation within our product lines to face the constantly-evolving threat landscape and prepare for whatever the future might throw at us. I would venture that this innovation is perhaps best exemplified by our flagship feature of Synchronized Security—and it would seem that I’m not alone. Gartner specifically mentioned this as a key component of our offering (XDR is the generic industry term for this form of integration) –

‘Sophos continues to lead the market with its XDR capabilities between firewall and endpoint security products. It is prominent in midsize use cases. The vendor wins deals primarily because of its XDR capabilities, cost savings and ease-of-use capabilities.’

It is also reassuring that our other key differentiators of ease-of-use and cost reduction are also called out in the summary, along with recognition of our target market of the small to medium enterprise.

The consolidation of the two quadrants has, perhaps, impacted Sophos more than most since our offering has been viewed very strongly in the UTM space where customer sizes are smaller, but we lack market penetration in the enterprise space, and this has led to a headwind effect in the consolidated quadrant.

Overall, the news is very positive. Our innovation has been recognised, our TCO and ease-of-use proposition are clear, and our target market is defined:

‘Sophos [is] an ideal security vendor for midsize organizations.’

As we continue to improve performance through our XStream Architecture, add enterprise features like SD-WAN, and continue to evolve, our rise up the table is assured.

Onwards!

To read the Network Firewall quadrant in full, please click here

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls, Analysts: Rajpreet, Kaur | Hils, Adam | D’Hoinne, Jeremy | 9 November 2020

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Sophos Gartner

OXFORD, U.K., Aug. 23, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sophos (LSE: SOPH), a global leader in network and endpoint security, today announced that Gartner, Inc., has once again positioned Sophos as a Leader in its Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms¹. This is the 11^th time in a row Sophos has been positioned as Leader.

We believe our placement is driven by our strong endpoint protection, real-world endpoint detection and response (EDR) usability, as well as our unifying platform, Sophos Central. We believe Gartner recognized Sophos for our proven record at stopping ransomware, the deep learning technology that blocks never-seen-before malware, and our anti-exploit technology. These are some of the ensemble of technologies available in Intercept X.

“Recent awareness of million dollar ransomware payments and GDPR fines indicates that IT managers are still not putting in place the protection they need to prevent cyberattacks. This is in part because they are inundated with threats coming from all directions and, in some cases, cybercriminals are using multiple methods and payloads along a single attack chain,” said Dan Schiappa, chief product officer at Sophos. “We believe Gartner’s recognition underscores how critical this endpoint product is to every organization’s security strategy. In our opinion, Gartner’s placement of Sophos in the Leaders quadrant 11 times in a row also demonstrates how Sophos is constantly innovating cybersecurity. This includes the development of EDR for endpoints and servers for advanced threat investigations.”

In addition to this industry recognition, Sophos recently achieved the following industry awards for Intercept X:

Sophos Gartner 2019

• Highest security effectiveness and best value in NSS Labs 2019 Advanced Endpoint Protection Group Test
• AAA rating for both Enterprise and SMB from SE Labs
• #1 for Malware Protection and Exploit Protection from MRG Effitas

A complimentary copy of the Gartner Magic Quadrant Report for Endpoint Protection Platforms is available from Sophos.

¹Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, August 2019.

Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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About Sophos
As a worldwide leader in next-generation cybersecurity, Sophos protects nearly 400,000 organizations of all sizes in more than 150 countries from today’s most advanced cyberthreats. Powered by SophosLabs – a global threat intelligence and data science team – Sophos’ cloud-native and AI-enhanced solutions secure endpoints (laptops, servers and mobile devices) and networks against evolving cybercriminal tactics and techniques, including automated and active-adversary breaches, ransomware, malware, exploits, data exfiltration, phishing, and more. The award-winning Sophos Central cloud-based platform integrates Sophos’ entire portfolio of best-of-breed products, from the Intercept X endpoint solution to the XG Firewall, into a single system called Synchronized Security. Sophos products are exclusively available through a global channel of more than 47,000 partners and Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Sophos also makes its innovative commercial technologies available to consumers via Sophos Home. The company is headquartered in Oxford, U.K., and is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol “SOPH.” More information is available at www.sophos.com.

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