A Perspective: Gartner Magic Quadrant For Endpoint Protection Platforms

Gartner recently released its Magic Quadrant for the Endpoint Protection Platforms and it places Symantec in the Leaders quadrant, furthest in vision and highest in execution. Gartner objectively measures each vendor included in the report through a lengthy questionnaire, interviews of several customers and partners, extensive demonstrations of the solutions, and in-depth analysis. For Completeness of Vision, Gartner looks at market understanding, marketing strategy, offering (product) strategy, innovation, and geographic strategy. For Ability to Execute, Gartner looks at a multitude of factors including sales execution and pricing, customer experience, partner experience, market responsiveness and record, and overall financial viability. Gartner defines a leader as demonstrating “balanced and consistent progress and effort in all execution and vision categories. They have broad capabilities in advanced malware protection, and proven management capabilities for large enterprise accounts.”

We believe our Integrated Cyber Defense Platform and the integrations our R&D team delivered are critical to our customers and what define a true Endpoint Protection Platform. Keeping businesses and organizations secure is an ongoing challenge. Cyber attacks are growing in volume and sophistication. Attacks and compliance volatility is impacting every geography and vertical. Add a shift toward the cloud, an expanded perimeter, and a shortage of cyber security talent and it all adds up to enormous challenges for CISOs of any size enterprise. The smartest way to deal with that challenge is to take a platform approach—giving CISOs a strengthened security posture, operational efficiencies, reduced complexity, and lower costs.

Organizations must deal with multiple devices connecting to the cloud and transmitting company data. Integrating technologies like deception technology, mobile threat defense for corporate-owned and BYOD devices, endpoint detection and response, signatureless protection via machine learning techniques and application isolation with SEP Hardening all up-level Symantec Endpoint Protection to a full platform.

We are proud that Gartner recognized Symantec as the vision and execution leader in the Endpoint Protection market. We believe the strength of the Symantec Partner Community was critical to the recognition as a vision and execution leader. While the Endpoint Protection Platform is innovative and at the heart of the analysis, Gartner also considers customer support and feedback from customers. Partners continue to play a critical role in serving our mutual customers, and in our opinion our placement in the 2018 Magic Quadrant reflects a joint success. Together, we have industry-leading solutions, technical expertise, and strong customer support that serves our customers well and keeps them protected, even in the face of a dynamically changing cyber security landscape.

I want to thank you for your exceptional support of our business. If you’d like to read more about the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant, you’ll find it here: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-4PP0XEC&ct=180126&st=sb

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.