Enrique Salem, with his impressive CV and past accolades – including his tenure as CEO of Symantec – is approached regularly to sit on various boards of directors. He currently sits on at least six, including ForeScout and FireEye. So how does he decide which to give his time to? “First, I look at the mega trends in the market place”, he told Infosecurity. “I consider disruptions and who will be the new winners. Team and leadership are also important to me, and finally market demand.”
ForeScout and FireEye ticked all of the boxes, he confirmed. “Palo Alto was the company of 2012, FireEye the company of 2013, and ForeScout will be the company of 2014”, Salem said. “ForeScout has the leadership role in the network space, and they make it about the eco-system of partners. I’m thrilled to be a part of it”.
ForeScout CEO, Gord Boyce, echoed this sentiment. “We sit at the very centre of the network, and integrate with almost all other IT software systems. We’re easy to deploy and we want to make users happy as much as we want to make the business happy.
Legacy Technology
Whilst focus of the market place is very much upon mobility and BYOD, which Boyce describes as “unavoidable – whether you want to embrace it or not, it’s happening”, Salem maintains that legacy technologies don’t go away. “There’s still investment in legacy systems, they stay in place until they die on the line”, Salem said.
Innovation investment, however, is reserved for new trends. “We can’t stand in the way of progress. We keep our jobs by saying ‘yes’ to the business and moving forward”, said Salem.
Boyce expanded, explaining that the exponential growth of IP addresses and the loss of control over the network require “more automation and functionality without intervention”.
Asked about the impact of Snowden on the information security market, both Salem and Boyce agreed that the revelations have contributed to a ‘lightbulb moment’ of security awareness, and that the situation has “given rise for people to talk about data classification”.
Innovation Race
Asked about the health of the merger and acquisition market, Salem answered “Security is a $30bn market – there will always be some level of consolidation, there’s no problem with that.” He believes there is a current opportunity for new market leaders, and believes the best innovation to be happening within start-ups.
Asked about ForeScout’s plans for acquisition, Boyce simply replied: “We’re always looking to broaden our portfolio.”