‘Our journey till date in India has been productive and satisfying’
How has Fortinet’s journey been in India so far?
Fortinet generated $433.6 mn revenue and 34% year-over-year growth in 2011 and has been cash flow positive for more than six years. In 11 years, Fortinet has become a leading provider of network security appliances. We are a 100% security focused vendor and we continue to make very large investments in R&D (our cumulative investment was $273 mn at the end of 2011) to provide a complete portfolio of products and services to enable organizations with end-to-end IT security (beyond network security, to include data security, wireless security, application security, etc.).
Our ultimate objective is to be organizations’ best partner for IT security. In 2009, we generated an annual revenue of $252.1 mn, followed by $324.7 mn in 2010 and $433.6 mn in 2011, thus showing our continued growth and development.
Tell us about the latest developments in Fortinet?
Last year, we also announced our partnership with Sify Technologies, a leader in enterprise network and data center services, to enable the latter to roll out an on-demand security solution to their cloud computing customers and its Clean Connect service. The services are designed to guarantee secure bandwidth and clean connectivity to their enterprise customers. Fortinet’s end-to-end virtualization functionality, available on the FortiGate integrated multi-threat security platforms, enables Sify to provision security resources, on-demand, from a shared appliance while providing an unmatched range of security services quickly and easily to its customers.
How was Fortinet’s performance in the last fiscal and what are your expectations in this financial year?
Fortinet has maintained its #1 position in the UTM vendor space for last 4 years and the #4 position in the overall security appliance market for 2011, according to IDC. Fortinet registered the highest growth rate (56%) in India. One stand-out deal in India last year was a win with a government division that provides IT solutions and communication infrastructure to all local government organizations. Numerous Fortinet high-end and mid-range FortiGate appliances were purchased in this UTM deployment.
In FY 2011-12, we have also built up two strong vertical practices—telco and government—following the adoption of a vertical sales strategy approach, which included the hiring of two senior industry specialists. Digvijaysinh Chudasama was appointed as sales director in charge of the Government and Defence verticals. Saurabh Chopra was made sales director in charge of the Telecom vertical. These two verticals represent strong business opportunity with the increased pressure on regulations on one hand and the advent of 3G and Wimax technologies on the other.
ranjeetab@cybermedia.co.in