Fortinet realigns its business focus to prioritize high-growth differentiated markets

Fortinet has announced that it is sharpening its business focus to prioritize high-growth, differentiated markets. Effective today, the company’s research & development (R&D) and go-to-market (GTM) strategy will be organized around three markets: Secure Networking, Universal SASE, and Security Operations. This evolution underscores and reaffirms the company’s commitment to providing value to its customers and fostering a culture of innovation. 

“Throughout our over 20-year history, Fortinet’s commitment to continual evolution has enabled us to remain at the forefront of innovation that supports our customers in safeguarding their infrastructure and data,” said Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer at Fortinet. “Throughout this time, our founding principles of converging networking and security and consolidating point products into an integrated platform continue to reverberate across today’s cybersecurity market. Looking forward, we are confident that this is the right time to focus our operations around Secure Networking, Universal SASE, and Security Operations.” 

Fortinet’s existing portfolio of integrated and organically developed products and services has a distinct competitive advantage in these three critical markets, making technology the cornerstone of this strategic shift. 

The Secure Networking market is expected to grow at nearly 9 percent annually to $86 billion in 2027. It consists primarily of network firewalls, secure switches, access points, and 5G gateways. As Fortinet’s firewall business grows, its revenue for attached AI-powered FortiGuard Security Services is expected to grow as well. As Fortinet’s largest addressable market—and one where Fortinet is the leader in both firewall revenues and units shipped—secure networking remains an essential part of its strategy. 

The Universal SASE market is expected to grow nearly 20 percent annually to $36 billion by 2027. It comprises SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, DLP, ZTNA, SASE, and other cloud-native networking and security technologies designed to simplify the implementation of a zero-trust strategy. Fortinet is the only company with a SASE solution that can perform all functions in the cloud or in an appliance, all supported through a common operating system, networking and security stack, and management console. Fortinet was recently included in the inaugural 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Single-Vendor SASE. 

The Security Operations market is expected to grow just over 14 percent annually to $78 billion by 2027. Fortinet’s SecOps platform is the most comprehensive, integrated, and broadest in the industry, providing EDR, SIEM, SOAR, NDR, and additional integrated enterprise-grade cybersecurity technologies to help organizations gain control and insight into their distributed operations.  

Fortinet is uniquely positioned to deliver Secure Networking, Universal SASE, and Security Operations solutions as integrated platforms underpinned by AI-driven technologies​, unified management, leading threat intelligence, and one of the largest open ecosystems in the industry. 

In connection with re-focusing its technology investments, Fortinet will continue to drive its industry-leading innovation engine through a culture that encourages and rewards innovative thinking. This approach has already resulted in 949 U.S. industry patents—over two times more than the next closest cybersecurity competitor.  

Fortinet’s investments in R&D are complemented by strategic shifts in its GTM investments that will also be centered around Secure Networking, Universal SASE, and Security Operations. Sales will be organized around these three strategic areas, enabled by training and marketing support, to ensure enhanced market penetration and improved customer engagement.