Telework Converting Cybersecurity to ‘Software-Delivered’ Tools: Palo Alto CEO

COVID-19's work-from-home “transition” is creating challenges for the cybersecurity industry “around hardware,” and “we expect this trend to continue,” said Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora on a fiscal Q4 investor call Monday. “When customers are not in their office, it's very hard for hardware to be delivered,” he said. “Hardware is going to continue to be a tough business in the next 12 months.” Palo Alto has been shifting customers to “software-delivered security,” he said, “and we plan to continue to do so.” It expects most future growth to come from software and services, he said. Prisma Access, Palo Alto’s cloud-based security infrastructure platform has been through “an amazing journey” this year, he said. That platform is “a powerful security tool as our customers go through a network transformation and create robust solutions for work from home for the long term,” he said. In Q4 ended July 31, “we saw very strong conversion of Prisma Access trials that were launched in response to COVID and work from home,” he said.