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655 points louis-paul | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.478s | source
1. debarshri ◴[] No.43630960[source]
It is commendable that TS has created a market in an already crowded marketplace of VPN tools. They're competing with Palo Alto, Netskope, Check Point, and Cisco, to name a few.

One key understanding from my brief market experience is that you must build a firewall or router if you really want to own the VPN market. The way the sale is done is that the vendor goes in with the firewall, router, and switch, offering office space connectivity with the infrastructure and various network locations and upselling the VPN. This often accounts for the subpar quality of VPN software. There is a trend called SASE, which includes technologies like TS; people are questioning the enterprise value of SASE. Netskope and Cato Networks are some examples.

I believe that their enterprise journey will be challenging, given the player's extensive experience in upmarket sales. Although TS appears appealing and has potential for improvement, the GTM is entirely unique for enterprise. You need to build reseller network, System integrator partners, high value customizations, etc.

If you decide to embrace the security positioning, you must have a diverse portfolio of products. If you model the org. around Palo Alto et al., you need a huge diversity of products, VPN, hardware, cloud security tools, app security tools, etc., as the ICP (CISO) is trying to optimize their allocated budget. People in enterprise are ok with good enough products as long as they meet compliance standards, fit the budget, and does not disrupt operations.

It could be that they might acquire bunch of companies with this capital.