Palo Alto Networks CEO says Microsoft has a way to go on cybersecurity

Cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks‘ CEO Nikesh Arora told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that while Microsoft’s foray into the cybersecurity sphere certainly substantiates the market, the company is just dipping its toes into a sector Palo Alto has been swimming in for years.

“This whole SASE market is going to be very huge, and we’ve sowed the seeds and invested in this five years ago, and first things first, this is a huge validation for the market,” Arora said, adding that the tab on these projects could be billions of dollars heftier now that Microsoft is in the game.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced it would be expanding its cybersecurity offering entering the Secure Access Service Edge space, known as SASE, a large part of the cybersecurity market dominated by smaller companies like Palo Alto. Palo Alto’s stock plummeted 7% on Wednesday because of this announcement, with peers CrowdStrike and Zscaler also taking a hit.

“They’re dipping their toes into the SASE space, we’ve been here for a while, clearly there are other industry players who’ve been in this space for a while,” Arora said of Microsoft. “From what I read, they’re sort of heading off into a good start, but they have a long way to go.”

Arora added that Palo Alto can provide comprehensive services that Microsoft might not be able to do.

“While Microsoft’s entering the SASE market, the world is going towards a multi-enforcement point, zero-trust network,” he said. “We can give hardware firewalls, software firewalls, SASE capability, to deliver that across all of the stuff with one single pane of glass is what all our customers are asking.”

Microsoft declined to comment on the matter.

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Disclaimer The CNBC Investing Club Charitable Trust holds shares of Palo Alto Networks.