Sophos Placed in the Leader's Quadrant of Gartner's 2016 Unified Threat Management Magic Quadrant for Fifth Consecutive Year

OXFORD, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - Sep 7, 2016) - Sophos today announced that it has once again been positioned in the "Leaders" quadrant of Gartner, Inc.'s Aug. 30, 2016, "Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management." The quadrant is based on an assessment of a company's ability to execute and completeness of vision. Sophos is one of three vendors to be placed in the Leaders quadrant in this latest report, and the only IT security company to be positioned as a Leader by Gartner in these three security Magic Quadrant reports: Sept. 2015 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection Solutions, Feb. 2016 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, and once again, the Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management (UTM).

"Network security is a critical pillar in protecting against today's sophisticated and persistent threats -- and is one of the fastest growing market segments in IT security. Our continued recognition as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant validates our position at the forefront of this important and growing market," commented Bryan Barney, senior vice president and general manager, Network Security Group at Sophos. "As a recognized leader in both endpoint and network security, and with over 100,000 customers in each segment, Sophos continues to deliver on our vision for a synchronized security platform that directly shares threat intelligence and the health status of all security products. This strategy achieves more advanced levels of protection for enterprises of all sizes -- while at the same time being easier to manage."

According to Gartner, "the Leaders quadrant contains vendors at the forefront of making and selling UTM products that are built for midsize-business requirements. The requirements necessary for leadership include a wide range of models to cover midsize-business use cases, support for multiple features, and a management and reporting capability that's designed for ease of use. Vendors in this quadrant lead the market in offering new safeguarding features, and in enabling customers to deploy them inexpensively without significantly affecting the end-user experience or increasing staffing burdens. These vendors also have a good track record of avoiding vulnerabilities in their security products. Common characteristics include reliability, consistent throughput, and products that are intuitive to manage and administer."

The Sophos network security business continues to grow faster than the market. In Sophos' fiscal year ending March 31, 2016 reported billings growth was 27.5 percent in Network security business which is well above the reported market growth of 7 percent. For the same period, the UTM and next-generation firewall (NGFW) business represented approximately half of Sophos billings worldwide.

For additional information on Sophos UTM and next-generation firewall solutions, please visit www.sophos.com/utm.

To download a complimentary copy of the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management report, click here.