Techaisle Blog

RSA Conference continues to be the epicenter for cybersecurity innovation, and this year, Cisco made significant waves with a series of announcements that underscore its commitment to delivering an integrated security platform. Moving beyond disparate point solutions, Cisco’s vision focuses on empowering customers with better security outcomes, reduced operational complexities, and optimized costs. This blog post dives into the key announcements from Cisco at RSAC, highlighting their advantages and what sets Cisco apart in an increasingly crowded security landscape.

The Core Vision: An Integrated Security Platform

At the heart of Cisco's announcements lies a fundamental belief that the cybersecurity industry is undergoing rapid transformation, particularly with the rise of AI-based workloads. Recognizing the novel security challenges these advancements introduce, Cisco has been strategically focusing on converging individual security solutions and infrastructure domains into a cohesive platform. As Tom Gillis, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Infrastructure & Security, eloquently stated, the goal is to enable customers to achieve superior security with lower operating and capital expenses. This platform approach is not just about bundling products; it's about deep integration that allows for enhanced visibility, coordinated enforcement, and streamlined management.

Securing the AI Revolution: AI Defense and Beyond

One of the most pertinent announcements revolves around security for AI. Cisco has now made its capabilities for securing both the development and usage of AI applications generally available. This isn't merely about monitoring AI; it involves fine-grained controls for validating AI models and securing the use of 3^rd party SaaS applications like ChatGPT and DeepSeek. For organizations developing their own AI-powered applications, Cisco offers the ability to enforce crucial guardrails.

The significant advantage is that this robust AI security is enforced on existing Cisco infrastructure, eliminating the need to deploy new, standalone solutions. The telemetry gathered from AI security measures seamlessly feeds into Splunk and provides enhanced visibility within Cisco XDR. This integration ensures a holistic view of the security posture, encompassing traditional threats and emerging AI-related risks.

Furthermore, Cisco acknowledges that securing AI requires an ecosystem approach. This is evidenced by its brand-new product and go-to-market partnership with ServiceNow. This collaboration aims to hydrate ServiceNow's AI risk and governance portfolio with Cisco's security intelligence, providing joint customers with comprehensive value as they increasingly adopt AI. This partnership spans visibility into application usage and model vulnerabilities to real-time protection and incident triage. By working closely with leaders in adjacent domains, Cisco is differentiating itself by offering a more comprehensive and integrated solution for managing AI risks.

The Distributed Future of Security: Hybrid Mesh Firewall

Cisco is betting big on a future where security enforcement is distributed, moving beyond the limitations of traditional perimeter-based firewalls. Its hybrid mesh firewall initiative embodies this vision, fusing security into the very fabric of network connectivity. This approach extends across physical and virtual firewalls and modern workload environments like VMs and containers, leveraging technologies such as Secure Workload, Isovalent Enterprise Platform for Cilium (with eBPF), and Hypershield. The key advantage here is the fungibility of enforcement – customers can apply consistent security policies across diverse environments without the need for a disruptive "rip and replace". Licensing is designed to be flexible, with customers using a pool of tokens that can be applied to different enforcement points as their needs evolve.

A groundbreaking component of this strategy is the introduction of new smart switches where every switch port functions as a layer 4 stateful line-rate firewall. This radical integration simplifies network architecture, reduces operational overhead, and addresses challenges like space and cooling. This is a unique offering in the market, showcasing Cisco's ability to deeply embed security within its core networking infrastructure.

Recognizing that customers often have heterogeneous environments, Cisco's hybrid mesh firewall will also support the security policy management of third-party firewalls. While initially focusing on layer three and layer four policy groups for segmentation, this capability allows for centralized policy management through Security Cloud Control. Support includes major vendors like Fortinet, Palo Alto, Juniper, and Checkpoint. This demonstrates Cisco’s commitment to providing value even in multi-vendor environments, moving towards a unified security posture management.

I first met Stefanie Chiras, Senior Vice President, Partner Ecosystem Success, Red Hat, in November 2021. During our conversation, she revealed her ambitious vision: to cultivate an empowering ecosystem that would propel Red Hat's growth and serve as a benchmark for the entire industry. She emphasized her commitment to a sustained, long-term journey. Over the ensuing four years, I witnessed her and her entire partner team's unwavering dedication to this mission, driving both incremental and generational changes that solidified the ecosystem's importance. Fast forward to today, April 2025, her endeavor has materialized; the concept of an ecosystem has become fundamental to Red Hat's strategic direction, and a significant number of leading IT vendors have integrated themselves into this network.

In today's dynamic IT landscape, the notion of a singular vendor providing all solutions has become anachronistic. The complexity of enterprise needs, the rapid pace of technological evolution, and the imperative for agility necessitate a collaborative approach —a vibrant ecosystem where innovation is a shared endeavor. Red Hat, an enterprise software company with an open source development model, has long understood this fundamental truth, and its evolved ecosystem strategy for 2025 underscores its commitment to fostering a robust network of partners that collectively drive customer success in the hybrid cloud and AI-driven future.

Far from being a mere add-on, Red Hat's ecosystem vision is deeply interwoven with its core strategy, serving as a critical engine for growth, adoption, and expansion. It's a testament to the company's open, inclusive, and collaborative culture, where the best ideas are recognized as emanating from within Red Hat and its vibrant communities, customers, and, uniquely, its partners. This foundational belief permeates every facet of Red Hat's ecosystem strategy, setting it apart from vendors who may view partnerships as transactional rather than transformational.

The Strategic Pillars of Red Hat's 2025 Vision: An Ecosystem-Centric Approach

Red Hat's overarching strategy for 2025 rests on three core pillars, each inextricably linked to the power of its ecosystem:

In today's rapidly evolving tech landscape, cloud marketplaces have emerged as critical channels for software distribution and consumption. Among these, Google Cloud Marketplace stands out with its unique approach, rapid growth, and strategic initiatives designed to benefit both customers and partners. This analysis delves into the key aspects of Google Cloud Marketplace, exploring its vision, growth metrics, partner advantages, recent developments, and future strategies. I will also look at why partners should seriously consider Google Cloud Marketplace as a pivotal part of their go-to-market strategy. Marketplaces do not kill the channel; instead, channel partners are a vital link in the buyer's journey. Buyers have access to a curated codebase that provides an expectation of security and interoperability. Cloud marketplaces help IT staff manage the ingestion of new software capabilities, and the effective use of cloud marketplaces contributes to agility and cost control. Both partners and marketplace operators build and manage relationships, plug into sales and marketing programs, drive investment in the implementation and support for end-users, and fund all of this on a fraction of the monthly fee associated with each service sold. Marketplaces contribute to channel partner evolution, not extinction, opening doors to agility and control.

Techaisle's survey shows 34% of SMBs, core-midmarket, upper midmarket, and enterprises are expanding cloud marketplace usage. Among upper midmarket firms, 70% find these marketplaces deliver time to value, and 67% say they simplify procurement.

What is Google Cloud Marketplace?

At its core, Google Cloud Marketplace is the primary digital storefront for Google Cloud and its partner ecosystem. It is designed to be a universal catalog of solutions, allowing customers to easily discover, try, and purchase software that runs on or with Google Cloud. This includes everything from virtual machines and Kubernetes to SaaS offerings, AI agents, foundational models, commercial data sets, and also professional services to support the end-to-end software lifecycle. The goal is to modernize the way business software is bought and sold, focusing on simplified discovery, efficient purchasing, and validated deployments that are deeply integrated with the Google Cloud environment.

 The Vision Behind the Marketplace

The fundamental vision of Google Cloud Marketplace is to modernize software procurement. This involves several key areas:

• Simplified Discovery: Making it easy for customers to find the solutions they need.
• Efficient Purchasing: Streamlining the buying process to save time and resources.
• Validated Deployments: Ensuring that all solutions are tested and optimized for the Google Cloud platform.
• Integration: Providing solutions that are seamlessly integrated with the Google Cloud environment.

By addressing these points, Google Cloud aims to make it easier for customers to adopt and use cloud-based solutions, while also providing a robust platform for partners to reach a broader audience and grow their business.

 Impressive Growth Metrics

Zoho is strategically positioning itself as a major player in the enterprise market, moving beyond its traditional focus on small and medium-sized businesses. Zoho's approach is centered around AI-driven solutions, vertical-specific platforms, and a growing partner ecosystem. The company is leveraging its vertically integrated technology stack, from data centers to applications, to provide unique use cases for its diverse customer base. By focusing on these core areas, Zoho empowers enterprises with customizable, scalable solutions that address their needs while emphasizing data privacy and long-term value. Zoho is also transitioning from being a product company to a platform company that enables customers to collaborate with Zoho to transform their businesses.

 Zoho's AI Strategy: Context, Privacy, and Practicality

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, Zoho is taking an approach grounded in its core tenets of privacy, value, and long-term thinking. Zoho's AI strategy, as revealed at ZohoDay, is not about hype or flashy demos but about delivering practical, contextual AI solutions that truly benefit its customers.

A key differentiator of Zoho's AI approach is its emphasis on contextual AI. Rather than offering generic AI tools, Zoho focuses on embedding AI within its various applications, tailoring it to specific business contexts. This approach, embodied by "Zia," Zoho's AI assistant, ensures that AI is not just a feature but an integral part of the user experience. For instance, AI is used to automatically categorize scanned receipts, detect phishing emails, and translate documents. These are not just AI for the sake of AI but AI that enhances productivity and simplifies workflows. Zoho notes that the best AI implementations are those that "fade into the background". This approach ensures that users benefit from AI without being overwhelmed by it.

Another distinguishing quality is Zoho's commitment to data privacy. Zoho is adamant that it will not use customer data to train its generic AI models. Instead, customer data is used to train models specific to that customer. This commitment to privacy is not just a policy but a core value that underpins Zoho’s AI strategy. It emphasizes that data without a permission layer is "extremely dangerous" and that their systems are built with this in mind. This resonates with increasing concerns about data privacy and security, making Zoho a trustworthy partner in the age of AI. Zoho utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs) in a variety of ways, with a focus on both internally hosted and third-party options. It has created an AI bridge allowing connectivity to multiple third-party public LLMs and hosts its own LLMs in-house, such as Llama and Deepseek. This bridge enables customers to choose a generic LLM for their entire instance. Additionally, Zoho is working on its own foundational, homegrown LLMs with 7 billion and 13 billion parameters, with a public launch expected this year. Zoho also uses smaller models for specific tasks, like email security, where a combination of models is used.

Zoho’s AI strategy also emphasizes delivering value. AI features are, in most cases, offered as part of Zoho’s existing offerings rather than as additional paid add-ons. This ensures that customers gain access to AI capabilities without paying extra, aligning with Zoho’s philosophy of making technology accessible and valuable.

Zoho is also playing the long game with its AI strategy. It is willing to make investments today that may not make sense in the short term but will pay off in the long run. This long-term view is vital to remember in a world where many tech companies are chasing the next quick buck. Zoho is carefully investing in building a complete and robust AI ecosystem, controlling the entire tech stack to enable unique use cases.

The company's approach to AI agents further underscores its focus on control, privacy, and customization. Zia Agents are built on a flexible architecture that allows customers to choose from various LLMs, both public and self-hosted, using Zoho's AI bridge. This gives customers control over their AI environment. The agents are also connected to multiple data sources, including structured and unstructured data, and have access to a rich set of tools and skills. This makes Zoho’s AI agents highly capable and customizable.

The introduction of Zia Agent Studio, a low-code tool that allows customers to create their own AI agents, further emphasizes Zoho’s commitment to customization and accessibility. This empowers businesses to tailor AI to their specific needs rather than rely on generic solutions, extending the value proposition further.

Zoho's Platform Strategy: A Composable Approach

Zoho's platform strategy, as articulated at ZohoDay, stands out for its composable architecture. This approach combines the power of pre-built applications with deep customization capabilities, a significant differentiator that allows Zoho to cater to many customers, from small businesses to large enterprises.