7. Kyle Hall, Resourcive

GigaOm assessed 19 vendors and how they performed in different markets its latest Radar for Software-Defined Wide Area Networks. Nine vendors landed in the analyst firm’s “Leader” quadrant. Aryaka, Cato Networks, Cradlepoint, Fortinet, HPE Aruba, Palo Alto Networks, Nokia, Versa and VMware claimed that honor.

The report’s author said enterprises are seeking to cut down on costs and drive flexibility with “fully integrated networking solutions.” As a result, vendors have brought together security and networking solutions into platforms with terms like secure access service edge (SASE), secure service edge (SSE) and what GigaOm calls secure service access (SSA).

The result is a “blurred” SD-WAN marketplace.

Resourcive president Kyle Hall, who also advises on SD-WAN, made waves when he said SD-WAN has not been undermined by SASE. He pointed instead to a changing customer conversation.

“I would say that technology leaders are having a discussion that is more encompassing than the ones that they were having two to three years ago. At the executive level, they are looking for a secure, reliable, high-performance network that requires as little of their staff’s dedicated time and attention as possible. We see SD-WAN as a component of that, but to maximize the value of the technology organizations need to consider adjacent point solutions that may be deployed or on a road map such as ZTNA, CASB, FWaaS and SWG,” Hall told Channel Futures.

Read more about the SD-WAN debate here.