A Platform is not a Product

One recurring discussion in cybersecurity is the relative value of platforms versus point solutions. Conveniently enough, every platform provider thinks platforms are what the people really want; conversely, every point solution thinks platforms are an awful value proposition. The truth lays somewhere in the middle: customers need their security challenges solved, and if a single solution solves multiple problems, it’s going to be an easy win. However, Lacework’s huge devaluation and sale to Wiz demonstrates that just “being a platform” with a large set of features isn’t the same thing as solving customer problems. On paper, Lacework had substantially more features than Wiz. They support all the same scanning, plus some, and have had agent based runtime detection for a much longer time. However, all of these features were built around a UX that people didn’t want, namely the idea that every finding should turn into an alert; and over time customers didn’t want more alerts, they wanted

One recurring discussion in cybersecurity is the relative value of platforms versus point solutions. Conveniently enough, every platform provider thinks platforms are what the people really want; conversely, every point solution thinks platforms are an awful value proposition. The truth lays somewhere in the middle: customers need their security challenges solved, and if a single solution solves multiple problems, it’s going to be an easy win. However, Lacework’s huge devaluation and sale to Wiz demonstrates that just “being a platform” with a large set of features isn’t the same thing as solv