 From around the globe, it's theCUBE, covering Fortinet Security Summit. Brought to you by Fortinet. Welcome back to NAPPA, Lisa Martin here at the Fortinet Championship Security Summit. I'm pleased to welcome the CEO of Linksys who joins me next, Harry Dewhurst. Harry, welcome to the program. Thank you. Great to hear, here we are in an in-person event, one, which is fantastic, two were outdoors, three were in NAPPA. Yes, what's not to love? There's nothing, nothing not to love. So you had a session this morning, talk to me about some of the things that you shared with attendees. So the session was talking about hybrid work and really how to make that successful. And we as a business are really focused making it not just work for companies, but for companies to thrive and to really embrace the hybrid work and extract the most benefit from it. So we spoke about the challenges that that has and some of the solutions to solving those challenges. Talk to me about some of the solutions I'm very familiar with, as someone who's been working from home for 18 months, some of the challenges I know understand it too from an enterprise security perspective, but what are some of the solutions that Linksys sees? So the solutions fall into kind of three main categories. The first is, of course, having the best and latest wireless technologies. So that's Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E. It's of course needs to be coupled with having a good pipe into your home or all leveraging 5G and other wireless technologies to have great connectivity. Then having mesh networking to enable it to be wall-to-wall coverage, seamless roaming between all the devices to mean that your network infrastructure within the home is very robust. The second kind of pillar of solution is around, now you can bring enterprise grade security into the home. Typically it would sit in server cupboards in offices and now with us in Fortinet, we've created a product which brings that enterprise grade technology for the first time into the home. So IT managers no longer have to compromise when it comes to security and they can apply the same policies that they would be doing in an office of 10,000 people to 10,000 offices in individuals' homes. And that's the kind of first world first I would say but it's going to be critical. And again, it's about moving from it's good enough to let's make it amazing and let's not compromise on something as critical as security and safety. Absolutely, we've spoken a lot with Fortinet today and over the last year and a half about the massive changes to the threat landscape, the expansion of it, especially with this pivot when suddenly there were all of these devices, personal devices on home networks, corporate devices on home networks, it's really changed not just the threat landscape but also what enterprises need to do. You guys, you mentioned this new announcement came out yesterday, the Linksys homework solution powered by Fortinet. Talk to us about that, the genesis of it and where enterprises can actually get access to this technology. Sure, so yeah, this is a product that really it's been a meeting of minds. You know, Linksys are a leader and have been a leader since the very beginning of wireless and we are, you know, a leader today. Fortinet, of course, are a leader in enterprise security. So the two combined, providing the best in class home internet experience coupled with the security which can be managed by the business. So when as an end user, as an employee, when I plug in this equipment, it automatically phones home to Linksys and then in turn to Fortinet, we know that it's Harriet Linksys that's been plugged in. It will spin up a network for me personally and my family to use in the home. So the benefit to the consumer is that there's a fantastic Wi-Fi 6 mesh solution throughout their home, which is most likely a significant upgrade on their Verizon equipment or whatever it might be. And it spins up a corporate network and that corporate network for all intents and purposes is imitating exactly like if you were sitting at your desk in the office, in the corporate office. So it becomes an extension of the corporate network. And as I say, it sits behind the FortiGate. Talk to me about the genesis of this solution. Was it the pandemic? Because Linksys is seeing the challenges from the consumer centric point of view. Talk to me about really kind of the catalyst for these two powerhouses coming together. So it was actually something that we were working on pre-pandemic and FortiNet were also looking at how to support the remote work because remote work is not like totally new. This pandemic has rapidly accelerated it but there was already a market and growing. This has just accelerated it. So both businesses independently of one another were kind of toying with it. So when we then kind of came together it was a no-brainer and there was a kind of light bulb moment and we realized that the combined solution with the two businesses and bringing together the expertise from both was really would be how we would succeed. Do you see any in the last, I know it was just announced yesterday, but any industries in particular that you think are really like low-hanging for this type of technology? I mean, I think finance is of course, high stakes poker in that industry. So same goes for healthcare and even education. So ones that where security is paramount, I mean, of course security is paramount everywhere but those ones in particular given the nature of those industries. So we really expect to see banking, finance, insurance, healthcare, pharma as key verticals that we would expect to be successful in. Okay, excellent. Well, one of the challenges with the ransomware increase is the 40 net threat landscape report showed it's nearly up 11% in the last 12 months. Of course we had that rapid pivot to work from home 18 months ago and ransomware and phishing and techniques and social engineering getting so much more sophisticated and personalized. Now you've got someone working from home who probably has a million distractions, kids, spouses, et cetera. So easy to click on a link that for most of it looks very legitimate. So having a solution like this in place is really critical for every industry. Absolutely and I think until those vulnerabilities are sealed, the attacks will continue and this solution is part of the solve for that because as soon as these holes in the bucket of a tape shut, the appetite to invest time in attacks will fade. Hopefully, that's the direction that we need to see it going right, not up and to the right, down. Absolutely. So you mentioned from the IT perspective, I'm looking for the benefits for an enterprise IT organization, centralized visibility, they can see in terms of productivity, I imagine it's much better for the end user. But give me that kind of IT business perspective. How does this help them come together? So for all intents and purposes, the IT manager will see within their Fortinet interface these devices, these LinkSys devices in people's homes just in the same way that they would see 40 gates in their office in New York or their office in Pittsburgh. So it really is this, there were 15,000 people in five offices, there's now 15,000 people in 15,000 offices, but they can push and manage and push those security policies seamlessly down to all 15,000, they can categorize and they can do, for all intents and purposes, those employees are sitting in one of their facilities. And that's really the bar that I believe companies should be holding themselves to, because it provides security for the company, it provides security for the employee, and of course, then by them being able to connect efficiently and securely and with great speed and no interruption, that's good for productivity, which is good for the company's profitability. Absolutely, it's all interconnected. And this is tuned for video conferencing, is that right? Yes, so we've actually partnered with both Zoom and Microsoft Teams to, we've done integration with them whereby we're able to identify and optimize that traffic within the network. So that adds an added benefit to users of those services and we'll be rolling out further partnerships with other key utilities that enable that optimization to help it be streamlined. So prioritize Zoom and Teams for the parents, kick the kids off the online gaming? Exactly, I mean, we've all experienced it. Apple TV gets fired up, Zoom goes down, or Fortnite gaming sessions cause havoc within the home. So it's that application prioritization and optimization that I think will also really benefit companies and the employees. The frustration is immense. I agree, I've experienced some of that, but what you're really doing is providing a very secure lifeline that the enterprise needs, the employee needs. It's all tied together in productive employees that are customer experience, that are products and services. It's really these days, especially considering we don't know how much longer this is going to persist. We expect that there will be some amount of hybrid that will probably be permanent. But that's a lifeline. Yes, no, absolutely. And I think to a point around the permanence of this, of course, we're not all going to be hermits and live at home forever. I hope not. But I think this has opened both companies and individuals' eyes to what's possible. And I think if you implement these types of measures, then you're setting it up for success. And I believe that the solution that we've launched is a part of the piece of the puzzle. And maybe the acceleration of a bit of a silver lining from what we've all experienced in the last 18 months. Yes, yes. Talk to me about some of the comments and the feedback that you got from your session this morning. I'm sure people are very excited to hear about what you're doing. Yeah, I mean, since the announcement came out yesterday, there's been certainly a lot of interest and appetite. And yeah, we're super excited about the reception it's received. I think there's been a lot of people that are like, oh, wow, of course. Why wouldn't this exist already? Right. And when you look at it like that, it kind of is obvious. But no one expected, of course, the pandemic. And therefore, no one was ready for it. And it's taken us a year or so to get a product that's viable and ready and going to be really, really a great utility for companies. But there really was nothing else out there. It is surprising in a sense, but then you're right. No one was prepared for the pandemic. We didn't see it coming. And we didn't think that this was a situation that we were going to have to prepare for, let alone live for as long, as TBD long as we have. Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's, I think it caught everyone by surprise. I think maybe if it had happened several years later, then the hybrid work movement had started. It was in its infancy. It got very, very quickly ramped up to adulthood. Yeah, yeah, it did. Definitely did. So great news, very exciting, what you guys are doing with 49. I'm sure that there's going to be great customer feedback. We'll be excited to watch what happens as it gets deployed and rolled out and see how this really transforms the enterprise experience, the employee experience. And I imagine this is a great differentiator for lengths of business. Yes, no, I think it's a really exciting next chapter of our history. We've been around for 30 plus years. And I think this is a real step change in where we're focused and I'm super excited about the future. I like that change in the future. Well, here we are in beautiful Napa. You said you're not a golfer, but your wife is a golfer. My wife is golfing. I am going to be keeping very many fingers crossed tomorrow during the program for the safety of the spectators. That's awesome, she's in the program. And here you are settled with all these meetings and all those things. I know, I know. Not fair. Tough life. Exactly, well, Harry, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for joining me on the program. Explaining the lengths of homework solution powered by Fortinet and all the great things that are going to come from that. Thank you. For Harry Duhurst, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE and Napa at the Fortinet Security Championship.