Netgear today took the next step in its plans to grow share among enterprises with the acquisition of privately-held security vendor Exium. Founded in 2019, Exium provides SASE capabilities that go beyond the secure web gateway (SWG) type of functionality that describes most retail and SMB networking gear. Financial terms of the deal were not publicly disclosed.
The acquisition is part of an overall strategic effort by Pramod Badjate, the company’s recently minted president and general manager of Netgear for Business. Badjate joined the company nine months ago after executive stints at Arista, Ruckus and Cisco.
“What I see as an opportunity, uniquely for Netgear, given what our roots are, is to address the needs of small and medium enterprise customers,” Badjate told Network World. “They have a unique need where they want the same level of reliability as a large enterprise expects [and] they also expect support.”
The evolution from secure web gateways to SASE
Traditional small business security has relied heavily on on-premises firewalls and secure web gateways (SWG), which filter web traffic at the network perimeter. However, the shift to distributed workforces has exposed the limitations of perimeter-based security models.
“Increasingly, they’re realizing that, just like everybody else, they have a distributed workforce,” Badjate said. “Many people work from home and there is a hybrid workforce, so they need to protect these employees against those threats, whether they’re working from home or they’re working on prem.”
SASE represents a fundamental architectural shift that converges networking and security functions in the cloud. Unlike traditional SWGs that only protect users when they’re connected to the corporate network, SASE provides consistent security policies regardless of user location or device. This cloud-native approach eliminates the need for backhauling remote traffic through corporate data centers for security inspection.
Addressing the SME security gap
The acquisition directly addresses a portfolio gap that Netgear (Nasdaq:NTGR) has identified through customer feedback.
According to Badjate, customers have been saying that they like the Netgear products, but they also really need more security capabilities. Netgear’s target market focuses on organizations with fewer than 500 employees and distributed enterprises such as franchisees. These customers require enterprise-grade reliability and support but need solutions that can be managed through MSP platforms with simplified operations compared to large enterprise deployments.
The company conducted a survey of existing customers, with 80% indicating they would purchase an integrated solution if it included specific security capabilities including URL filtering, basic firewalling, VPN access, zero trust for perimeter protection, and intrusion prevention/detection systems.
Technical integration strategy and architecture
Exium was selected from multiple acquisition candidates based on several technical and strategic factors. The company operates on a cloud-native architecture and has focused specifically on MSPs as their go-to-market strategy, aligning with Netgear’s channel approach.
Netgear plans to maintain Exium’s existing solution for customers who prefer standalone security services, while simultaneously developing integrated network and security packages. The company has not yet finalized branding decisions for the combined offering.
“What Exium offers is targeted to solve the needs of this type of customer and at a very reasonable price point,” Badjate noted.
Multi-use case architecture beyond traditional IT
The acquisition addresses multiple networking scenarios beyond traditional IT environments.
Netgear has established itself as a leader in AV over IP networks, which present unique security challenges due to multicast traffic and demanding performance requirements.
“On the AV side, we needed a sort of a security solution that is needed in AV networks to protect the AV side of the network from the IT side,” Badjate explained. “Exium has a solution like that as well.”
This capability is particularly important as AV networks increasingly converge with traditional IT infrastructure. The company serves customers ranging from small offices to large educational institutions with thousands of access points and switches, as well as multinational banks that have deployed hundreds of Netgear switches for AV applications.
How Netgear plans to bring big enterprise functionality to SMB networks
Small and medium enterprises have historically faced significant barriers to adopting enterprise-grade security solutions. The primary challenges identified through Netgear’s customer research include cost, complexity and deployment difficulties.
Badjate explained that part of his mandate is to solve those challenges. The acquisition of Exium positions Netgear to compete differently in the enterprise networking space. Rather than competing directly with large enterprise vendors on feature complexity, the company is focusing on right-sizing solutions for SME requirements while maintaining enterprise-grade reliability.
“Either you have complex and more pricey systems, or you have piecemeal systems which lack support, which lack the proper enterprise level reliability, and I think there is a need in between,” Badjate said.
Source:: Network World