Microsoft is diving deeper into cybersecurity with three new managed services to help businesses with their security needs.
Microsoft Security Experts “combines expert-trained technology with people-led services to help organizations achieve more secure, compliant and more productive outcomes,” Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for security, compliance, identity and privacy, wrote in a blog post.
The new services include: Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting, Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, and Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise.
The offering will boost Microsoft’s growing cybersecurity business. In January, Microsoft said its security products revenue exceeded $15 billion in the previous 12 months, up 45 per cent year-over-year — more than 8 per cent of Microsoft’s total revenue for that period, and three times Palo Alto’s annual revenue. Networks, the publicly traded independent IT security company by market value.
The company grew its security customer base by nearly 50 per cent year-over-year to 785,000 in its most recent quarter.
Microsoft recently launched a new security, compliance, identity and management organisation led by Charlie Bell, a former director of Amazon Web Services. Bringing together existing groups from across the company, the new organisation will employ 10,000 people, including existing and open positions, representing more than 5 per cent of the technology giant’s nearly 200,000 employees.
Major cloud providers, including Microsoft, Google and Amazon, are looking to provide businesses with better protection against a growing number of threats. Google announced in March its intention to buy cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion; Microsoft was reportedly in the running to acquire Mandiant before it pulled out.
“Security is a top priority for any organisation undergoing digital transformation,” CEO Satya Nadella said during the company’s earnings call last month.
