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Continuing with our Gartner Magic Quadrant series, this post will review the “Leaders” of Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems. In case you’re just joining the series, be sure to catch up on the other Magic Quadrants that we’ve highlighted:  ADC, EPP, Enterprise Network Firewalls, IaaSSIEM, SSA, Integrated SystemsWAF.

This time, we are diving into Trend Micro’s recent (re)appearance in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IPS) Magic Quadrants.

Trend Micro Joins Forces

Up until just recently, Trend Micro wasn’t anywhere to be seen on the IPS Magic Quadrants. But before you pass judgement, we need to cover some historical benchmarks prior to discussing its status in the 2017 Gartner report. And it involves a company called TippingPoint.

TippingPoint has frequently been on the move. Founded in Texas in January of 1999, TippingPoint was originally named Shbang! and was an internet appliances retailer. By 2002, the company had discontinued its appliance operations, instead deciding to focus on network security provisions and change its name to TippingPoint. It then only took them six years to make it to the very top of the “Leaders” Quadrant in Gartner’s IPS report, leading the pack from 2008 to 2009.

As an enterprise “hot potato,” TippingPoint saw its fair share of CEOs, Presidents, and upper management.  The company went through various acquisitions over the years: 3Com in 2005, Hewlett Packard in 2010, and most recently, Trend Micro in 2016.

However, in 2017, Leaders in Intrusion Detection and Preventions Systems, Cisco and Intel, abruptly saw a new frontrunner in the lower left corner of their quadrant: Trend Micro, formerly TippingPoint.

How did Trend Micro forge a path to the IPS top so quickly?

What This Now-Duo Brings to the IPS Table

Due to its acquisition of TippingPoint, Trend Micro can now—among other things—support stacking with “no other external hardware and can run up to 100 Gbps of inspected throughput.” Not only that, Trend Micro is now able to deliver the TippingPoint IDPS using an Intel-based platform rather than the former decade-old NPU architecture. With combined knowledge and expertise of the Trend Micro and TippingPoint research teams, Trend Micro has ultimately augmented the IDPS’s ability to explicitly address malware threats.

The Gartner 2017 report continues, saying that “the TippingPoint move to Trend Micro [has been] an overall net positive.” Customers report increased savings and describe “easy, confident deployment of this IDPS in blocking mode, including the ability to have malware-centric content” and the “ability to integrate third-party vulnerability scanning data to speed up IDPS policy workflow.” Gartner points out numerous times that the divestiture of TippingPoint was a strong move forward for Trend Micro, “with improvements noted in [both] its roadmap and field organization.”

In short, the two companies have swiftly become a unified force to be reckoned with; a powerful security cocktail that has resulted in an almost-immediate appearance in Gartner’s Leaders Quadrant for IPS. Iron does sharpen iron.

Consistency Goes a Long Way

It seems that TippingPoint was simply in need of a strong and consistent partner to augment its already effective offerings. Both companies have a great deal to bring to the table, but the combination of the two seems to be stronger than the sum of its parts, according to Gartner’s accolades. Trend Micro is sure to continue its move up the Leaders quadrant in coming years as the two entities continue to hone their aggregate services.

Want to explore what the united services of Trend Micro and TippingPoint can accomplish for your company? Contact us. We would be happy to further explain Trend Micro and then analyze your specific needs to see if your company will benefit from partnering with these Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems leaders.