Crowdstrike’s partnership with Dell is shaking up the cybersecurity landscape ahead of a planned IPO (DELL)

Michael Dell

Dell announced a new partnership with the cybersecurity startup CrowdStrike, shortly after Dell's existing security partner Cylance announced plans to be acquired by Blackberry.
Some analysts said the move marked a shakeup in the cybersecurity world.
Dell told Business Insider that it will continue to offer and support security products powered by Cylance. But in its announcement of the new Crowdstrike product, the company said it was reinventing its portfolio.
Dell will still work with Cylance, and said the timing with Blackberry's acquisition of Cylane is a "coincidence."

IPO candidate and cybersecurity rising-star CrowdStrike has nabbed a key partnership with Dell, despite the tech giant's deep ties with its closest competitor, Cylance.

On Thursday, Dell announced a new partnership between itself, CrowdStrike and Dell subsidiary Secureworks for a new project called "Dell Safe Guard and Response," an end-point security portfolio that will launch in March. As part of the partnership, Dell computers will come loaded with the option to use CrowdStrike.

Dell also has two security products powered by Cylance which went live in early 2016. Dell Ventures also invested in Cylance earlier in 2015.

george kurtz CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike, which was valued at $3.35 billion in a June venture funding round, is pursuing an IPO this year, sources told Business Insider. Reuters previously reported that Crowdstrike hired Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO.

It's one of the most highly-valued independent cybersecurity companies in a market which is increasingly consolidated. Among CrowdStrike's other partnerships are HPE, IBM, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud.

Cylance, another endpoint cybersecurity solution, was long seen as one of CrowdStrike's biggest competitors.

The end-point hierarchy was called into question in fall, however, when Blackberry announced its plans to acquire Cylance for $1.4 billion.

Cybersecurity landscape shakeup

Dell said that it will continue to offer and support its Cylance-powered security products, and added that while both Cylance and CrowdStrike provide malware protection, the upcoming product expands Dell's security coverage.

"Now we’re able to address an additional set of customer concerns and requirements to better protect their data," a spokeswoman said. The timing with Cylance's acquisition by Blackberry is a coincidence, Dell said.

Cylance did not respond to a request for comment.

While Dell down-played the shift, Stifle analyst Gur Talpaz see this partnership as a cybersecurity shakeup.

"We consider Dell's decision to leverage CrowdStrike's endpoint technologies within the Dell SafeGuard solution to be a confirmation of sorts as it pertains to CrowdStrike's positioning as the endpoint market's leader in regard to technological efficacy," Taplaz wrote.

"We consider the announcement of Dell's new partnership with CrowdStrike to imply that Cylance has been displaced in this role," he added.

As for SecureWorks, Taplaz doesn't read much into it, aside from nepotism.

"Dell's position as majority shareholder of SecureWorks makes Dell naturally incentivized to present the company with opportunities to leverage as tailwinds to growth," he wrote, adding that Stifle sees this as Dell "taking a more active role" in SecureWork's growth.

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