Fortinet

Fortinet
	File:Fortinet logo.gif
Company type	Privately held company
Industry	Network security & Computer security
Founded	2000
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, California + over 25 Fortinet offices worldwide
Key people	Founder and CEO: Ken Xie, Founder and CTO: Michael Xie, CFO: Brett White, CMO: Richard Stiennon, Vice President of Americas Sales & Global Alliances: Karl Soderlund, Vice President of EMEA: Andre Stewart, Vice President of APAC: Jens Andreassen, Vice President of Americas Channel Sales: Michael Valentine
Products	Unified threat management (UTM), Firewalls, Antivirus, Intrusion-prevention system, Antivirus, Antispam, VPN, Censorware -- all with Common Criteria EAL4+ certification, 8 ICSA security certifications, NSS certified (IPS, UTM)
Revenue	100M+ & cash flow positive (2005)
Number of employees	800+ (Q1 2007)
Website	www.fortinet.com

Fortinet is a private company that is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that specializes in network security appliances. Fortinet’s primary product line is a range of enterprise security appliances sold under the brand name of FortiGate.

Corporate Overview

Fortinet was founded in 2000 by Ken Xie, the founder and former president and CEO of NetScreen (later sold to Juniper for more than $3.5 billion) and is led by a seasoned management team with deep experience in the networking and security arenas. Fortinet's position as the leading privately-held network security company and the revenue leader in UTM has been validated by IDC several times over.

The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with customer support, development and sales facilities throughout North America, Europe and Asia. Fortinet sells its systems and subscription service products through a network of channel partners worldwide.

Fortinet in the Channel

Fortinet, which sells via a 100-percent indirect model, has more than 1,600 partners worldwide. The company has expanded its channel team by 100 percent over the past year, and now has over 800 channel partners in North America. Fortinet was recognized two years in a row by CMP Media's VARBusiness magazine as one of North America's top information technology vendors in terms of the partnership programs it offers to solution providers that sell its products and services to end users. Fortinet's certification as a Five-Star Partner is an acknowledgement of the company's commitment to and strength of its FortiPartner Program for IT integrators, solution providers, resellers and consultants.

Fortinet was specifically recognized for its success in the Americas, and Karl Soderlund, vice president of sales, Americas, was also ranked No. 6 on the magazine's list of "25 Channel Executives You Need to Know."

Of the 250+ vendor-program entries reviewed for the past year, only 60 companies received the Five-Star rating in the magazine's 13th annual Partner Programs Guide survey.

Global Alliances

Fortinet has unveiled a partnership with Hewlett-Packard's ProCurve Networking division that highlights the growing integration of networking and security technologies. Fortinet is the first vendor to join the ProCurve Alliance, HP's effort to push open-architecture solutions from other vendors that have been tested and certified for interoperability. Fortinet will weave its FortiGate unified threat management product into ProCurve's line of layer 3 switching products.

Funding

Fortinet has raised $100 million in five rounds of venture capital investment from Acorn Campus, DEFTA Partners, DCM-Doll Capital Management, Fortunetech Partners, LLC., Forval Creative Inc., Meritech Capital Partners and Redpoint Ventures.

Product Overview

The FortiGate family of multi-threat security appliances are ASIC-accelerated, security hardened and has integrated network-based firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, VPN (IPSec and SSL), web filtering, antispam and other security features. The company is considered a leader in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) security appliance market; the FortiGate series of ASIC-accelerated multi-threat security appliances won the SC Magazine 2007 awards for reader’s trust in the Integrated Security and Intrusion Prevention categories.Fortinet’s antivirus technology has been awarded the Virus Bulletin VB100 [virusbtn.com/vb100] award, for three years running (2005 – 2007. In 2004 the FortiGate product won the Security Product of the Year Award from Network Computing magazine and the 2003 Networking Industry Awards Firewall Product of the Year, and has been reviewed by PC Magazine [1].

List of Products

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Security Research

Fortinet also delivers four primary security subscription services under the "FortiGuard" brand. These include Antivirus, intrusion-prevention system, Antispam, VPN and content-control software.

Other

Fortinet contributes to the security community through its Global Security Research Team. An example of this is Fortinet’s membership in the Microsoft Virus Information Alliance (VIA) [2]. Fortinet in recent years has led to the discovery of several critical vulnerabilities in commonly used software [3].

According to the OpenNet Initiative [4], FortiGuard is used by the dictatorship of Myanmar to block communications critical of the regime carried over the internet, a system known as the Myanmar Wide Web [5]. Fortinet has promised to investigate the allegations, and the implied violation of US Government sanctions against the regime, noting that the software may have been sold to the regime by a third party [6]; meanwhile, the Myanmar government features its adoption of the Fortinet firewall on its official website [7] with other photos showing a Fortinet sales director presenting a gift to the Myanmar Prime Minister during a ceremony [8].

In 2005, the gpl-violations.org project uncovered evidence that Fortinet had used GPL code in its products against the terms of the license, and used cryptographic tools to conceal the violation. The violation was alleged to have occurred in the FortiOS system, which the gpl-violations.org project said contained elements of the linux kernel. In response, a Munich court granted a temporary injunction against the company, preventing it from selling products until they were in compliance with the necessary license terms [9]; Fortinet was forced to make their FortiOS available free in compliance with GPL licensing [10].Also in 2005 Fortinet was found guilty of Patent infringement against Trend Micro regarding AntiVirus code [11]. Fortinet later settled out of court [12].

External links