 From the CUBE studios in Palo Alto in Boston, connecting with thought leaders all around the world, this is a CUBE Conversation. Well, happy new year. One and all, welcome to 2021 and CUBE Conversations continuing our ongoing series. I hope your new year is off to a great start. And I know that the end of 2020 was a very good one for Avante. And Jim Shaper, who's the CEO, is going to join us to talk about that as is Nayaki Nayar, who is the EVP and the Chief Product Officer. So Nayaki and Jim, good to have you with you on the CUBE and happy new year to you. Thank you, John. Happy new year to you in 2020. I think for a lot of us couldn't get out of here quick enough, although we had some great things happen to our company at the very end of the year. So anxious to talk to you about it and appreciate the opportunity. Oh, you bet. So we're talking about some two major acquisitions that you made that both closed near the end of the year back in December, not too long ago. One with Pulse Secure, the other of Mobile Iron, two companies that provide you with additional expertise in terms of mobile security in the enterprise security space. And so Jim, if you would, let's first talk about just for the big picture the acquisitions that were made and what those moves will do for you going forward. Okay, great, John. We closed both acquisitions interestingly enough on December 2nd. So we've been fortunate to have them part of our company now for about the last 30 days. One of the things that we made a decision on a number of months ago was that we had a real opportunity in the markets that we serve to really build our business more quickly through a series of acquisitions that strategically made sense for us, our investors, and more importantly, our customers. And that really is why we chose Mobile Iron and Pulse for different reasons, but nonetheless, all very consistent with our long-term strategy of securing the endpoints on every network in every location around the world. And so consequently, when you think about it, and we've all witnessed here over the last 30 days or so, all of the security breaches, all of the things that go along with that, and our real focus is ensuring that every company and every individual on their network, outside their firewall, inside their firewall, on any device is secure. And so with these two particular acquisitions, in addition to the assets that we already had as a part of Avanti, really puts us in a competitively-advantaged position to deliver to the edge, and Niyaki will talk about this, the ability to secure those devices and ensure that they're secure from phishing expeditions or breaches or all of those kinds of things. So these two particular acquisitions really puts us on the map and puts us in a leadership position in the security market. So we're thrilled to have both of them. Yeah, before I go off to Niyaki, I want to follow up just on a point that you made, Jim, talking about security breaches. We're all well aware of the news of what we've been hearing from the federal level about the state actors and the kind of these infiltrations of major US systems, if not international systems. Some Interpol data, I read, 270 some odd percent increase in breaches just in the post-COVID time or in the COVID time the past year. That gets your attention, does it not? And what does that say to you about the aggressive nature of these kinds of activities? Well, that they're getting more sophisticated every day and they're getting more aggressive. I think one of the most frightening conversations I had was a briefing with our chief security officer about how many attempted breaches of our network and our systems that he sees every single day. And that we're able to identify what foreign actors are really trying to penetrate our systems. What are they trying to do? But the one thing I would leave you with is they're becoming much more sophisticated. Whether you're inside the firewall or whether you're on your iPhone as an extension of the network, the level of sophistication is startling. And unfortunately, in many cases, as evidenced by the recent breaches, you don't even know you've had a breach for could be months, weeks, days, and so what damage is done? And so as we look forward and as Nyaki kind of walks you through our product strategy, what you're going to hear a lot of is how do we self-protect? How do we self-learn the devices at the edge on the end of the networks, such that they can recognize foreign actors or any breach capability that somebody is trying to employ? And so yeah, it's frightening how sophisticated and how frequent they have become. I think the one thing that really struck me as I read about the breaches was not so much the damage that has been done, but the damage that could be done prospectively and about which we have no idea, right? You don't know, it's like somebody lurking in your closet and they're going to stay there for a couple of months and wait for a time that maybe your guard is even more down. So that's what shocks me. Nyaki, let's talk about your strategy then. You picked up obviously a couple of companies, one in the enterprise IT space, another one in the VPN space, adding to your already extensive portfolio. So I imagine from your office or wearing the hat of the chief product officer, you're just kind of licking your chops right now. You've got a lot more resources at your disposal. Yeah, we are very, very busy, John, but to Jim's point, one of the trends we are seeing in the market as we enter into the post-COVID era, right? Where everyone is walking from anywhere, be it from home, be it from office, while on the move. Every organization, every enterprise is struggling with this, what we call this explosive growth of devices, devices being mobile devices, client-based devices, IoT devices, the data that is being generated from these devices. And to your point, the cybersecurity threats, right? It is predicted that it has been 30,000% increase in the cybersecurity threats that are being targeted primarily at the remote workers. So you can imagine whether it's phishing attacks, malware attacks, I mean, just this explosive growth of devices, data, cybersecurity attacks at the remote workers. So organizations need automation to be able to address this growth and this complexity, which is where Ivanti's focus in discovering all the devices and managing those devices. So as we bring the mobile line portfolio and Ivanti's portfolio together, now we can help our customers manage every type of devices, be it Windows devices, Mac devices, Linux, iOS, Android devices, and secure those devices. There's zero trust access that users need, the remote users need all the way from cloud access to the endpoint is what the strength of both mobile line and pulse brings to our entire portfolio holistically. So we are truly excited for our customers. Now they can leverage our entire end-to-end stack to discover, manage, secure, and service all those devices that they now have to service for their employees. Yeah, I mean, explain to me or just walk me through zero trust in terms of how you define that. I've read about, trust nothing, verify everything, those kinds of explanations, but if you would, from your perspective, what does zero trust encompass? Not only on your side, but on your client side, because you then want to give them tools to do things for themselves, to self-heal and self-serve and those kinds of things. Right, so I mean, zero trust is you don't trust anything, you validate and certify everything. So the access users have on your network, the access they have on the mobile devices, the applications they're accessing, the data that they're accessing. So being able to validate every access that they have when they come into your network is what the whole zero trust access really means. So the combination of Ivanti's portfolio and also pulse, that zero trust access all the way from as users are accessing the network data, cloud data, endpoint data is where our entire zero trust access truly differentiates. And as we bring that with our UEM portfolio with the mobile line, there's no other vendor in the market that has that holistic offering into an offering. You know, John, it's interesting, John, you talk about timing is everything, right? And when we began discussions with mobile iron, it was right before COVID hit. And we had a great level of expertise inside the pre-acquisition of Ivanti to be able to secure the end points at the desktop level. But we struggled a bit with having all of the capabilities that we needed to manage mobile devices and tablets and basically anything that is attached to the network. That's what they really brought to us. And having done a number of acquisitions historically in my career, this was probably the easiest integration that we had simply because we did what they didn't do and they did what we didn't do and then they brought some additional technologies with us. But what's really changed in the environment because of this work from home or work from anywhere as we like to articulate it is you've got multiple environments that you've got to manage. It isn't just what's on the end of the VPN, the network. It's what's on the end points of the cloud. What kind of cloud are you running? You're running a public cloud, you're running a private cloud. Is it a hybrid environment? And so the ability to and the need to be able to do that is pretty significant. And so that's one of the real advantages that both the pulse as well as the mobile iron acquisitions really brought to the combined offering from a product standpoint. Well, yeah, I'd like to follow up on that then just because the cloud environment provides so many benefits obviously but it also provides this huge layer of complexity that comes on top of all this because you just talked about it. You can have public, you can have hybrid, you can have on-prem, on-prem, whatever, right? You have all these options. And yet you, Avante, are having to provide security on multiple levels and multiple platforms and multiple environments and how much more complex or challenging is your mission now because of consumer demand and the capabilities that technology is providing your clients? Well, it's certainly more complex and NIACI is better equipped to probably talk in detail about this. But if you just, if you take a step back and think about it, you think about internet of things, right? I used to have a thermostat and that thermostat was controlled by the thermostat on the wall. Now everything is on Wi-Fi. If I've got a problem, I had a problem with a streaming music capability which infected other parts of my home network. And so everything is, that's just one example of how complicated and how wired everything has really become except when it comes to the mobile devices which are still always remote. You've always got it with you. I don't know what it was like for you, John, but historically I've used my phone for email, texts, and phone calls. Now it's actually a business tool, but it's a remote business tool that you still have to secure, you still have to manage, and you still have to find and identify on the end of the network. That's where we really come into play now. NIACI, anything you want to add to that? Yeah, so to Jim's point, John, and to your question also, as customers have what we call the multi-cloud offering, right? They have public clouds, private clouds, on-prem data centers, devices on the edge. And as you extend into the IoT world, being able to provide that seamless access, this is Zero Trust Access all the way from the cloud applications to the applications that are running on-prem, in your data centers, and also the applications that are running on your devices and the IoT applications is what that entire end-to-end Zero Trust Access is where our competitive strength resides with Pulse coming into our portfolio. Before Ivanti didn't have this, we were primarily a patch management vendor in the security space, but now we truly extend beyond that patch to this end-to-end access all the way from cloud to edge is what we call. And then when we combine that with our UVM portfolio in our endpoint management with Mobile Line, and also service management, that convergence across the people access where we truly differentiate and compete and we're in the market. Mayakhi, how does the internet of things factor into this? Cause I look at sensor technology, I'm just thinking about all the billions of inputs that you have now, right? With whether it's farming or agricultural inputs, business inputs, meteorological, whatever. So you've, I'm sure, you're considering this as well. It's part of a major play of yours in terms of providing IoT security. Absolutely. How more proliferated is that now and how much of that is kind of in your concern zone, you might say. Yeah, absolutely. So just taking this trends we have in managing the end points, you will extend that into the IoT world also, John, when we say IoT world, in the industry what it was like healthcare devices. So stay tuned in January release, we'll be releasing how we will be discovering, managing and securing for the healthcare devices like seamless devices, Bayer's devices, Canon devices. So you're spot on how we can leverage this trend we have in managing end points to also IoT devices, that same capabilities that we can bring to each of the industry verticals. Now we're not trying to solve the entire vertical market, but certain industry verticals where we have a strong footprint, healthcare is a strong footprint for us, healthcare is a strong footprint. So that's where you will see as extending into those IoT devices too. Okay, so in going forward, Jim, if you would just, let's talk about your 2021 in terms of how you further integrate these offerings that you've acquired. Right now all of a sudden you've got 30 days of, which is a snap of a finger. But what do you see how 2021 is going to lay out, especially with distributed workforces, right? We know that's here. That's a new normal with a whole new set of demands on networks and certainly the need for security. That's exactly correct, John. I mean, everything has changed and it's never going back to the way it was. Everybody has their own definition of the new normal. I guess my definition is at some point in time when things do return to some form of normality, a portion of our workforce will always work from home to what degree remains to be seen. And I don't think we're different than virtually any other industry or any other company. So it does put increased demands, complexity and requirements around how you run your internal IT business. But as Naaki talked about kind of our virtual service desk offering where you're not going to have a service desk anymore. It's got to be virtual. Well, you have to be able to still provide those services outside of your normal network. And so that's going to be a continued big push for us. I've been incredibly pleased with the way in which the employee bases of the acquired companies have really folded in and become one with our company. And I think as we all recognize cultural differences between organizations can be quite significant and an impediment to really moving forward. Fortunately for us, we have found that both of these organizations fit really nicely from an employee, from a values perspective, from a goals and objectives perspective. And so we did most of the heavy lifting on all the integration, shortly after we closed the transactions on the second of December. And so we've moved beyond what I would call the normal kind of concerns and angst around what's going to happen in this and that. We're now kind of heads down and what's the long-term integration going to look like from a product standpoint. We're already looking at additional acquisitions that will continue to take us deeper and wider into our three product pillars as Nayaki described. And that'll be an ongoing kind of steady dose of acquisitions as we continue, excuse me, supplement our organic growth within organic growth. Well, you got to answer my question that I was going to ask you. I found that the company four years ago, there were two big acquisitions back in 2017. We'd wait four years, Jim, until you get back into that poll again. So the plan maybe not to wait another four years before moving on. No, trust me, you won't be waiting another four years. Now you got to bear in mind, John, I wasn't here four years ago. That's right, right. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Excuse me for your coffee. That's okay. I want to thank you both for the time today. Congratulations on sealing those deals back in December. And we certainly wish you all the best going forward. And of course, a very happy and a very safe new year for you and yours. Same to you, John. Thanks so much for the time. And so it was a pleasure to spend time with you today. Thank you, John. Happy new year again. Thank you. Thank you.