Cisco Tops in Security, But McAfee, Fortinet, Check Point Make Strides

Cisco once again topped Infonetics Research’s “Network and Content Security Vendor Scorecard,” which profiles, analyzes and ranks the eight leading global vendors of network and content security solutions. But the Silicon Valley giant better watch its back.

“Cisco might not be toppled,” noted Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics, “but there are more than a few vendors – Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Check Point – challenging Cisco and establishing their presence in the market, and some wildcard vendors have built disruptive product portfolios that could lead to explosive growth in revenue and increases in their scores in future versions of this report.”

Cisco finished first in seven of eight criteria, notching perfect scores in financials and market share.

McAfee was second on the strength of its market share position, strong financials, broad product portfolio and excellent scores in buyer feedback categories. Solid scores in solution breadth, financials, market share and market-share momentum kept Check Point in the top three.

Palo Alto Networks had the largest market-share momentum of any vendor, Infonetics said. The remaining companies analyzed in the study are Blue Coat, Dell Sonic Wall, Fortinet and Juniper Networks.

“The network and content security space is complex, and there are many vendors and countless market forces pushing and pulling on those vendors,” Wilson added. “Though Cisco has stiff competition in many of the criteria we cover in our security scorecard, they have a strong lead in market share and an extremely broad product line.”

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