CrowdStrike global CEO says partners, customers joining them over Symantec

CrowdStrike global chief executive and co-founder George Kurtz has taken a jab at competitor Symantec over its customers and partners.

In the company’s fiscal Q1 2020 results, Kurtz said that Symantec has “abandoned” large segments of the cybersecurity market and that its partners and customers have started turning to CrowdStrike for their security needs.

“We continue to displace Symantec customers,” Kurtz said told reporters present in the earnings call. “People are looking for platforms and they are looking for technologies that actually work and stop breaches. Ransomware has been a huge driver and signature-based AV is really not capable of dealing with sophisticated ransomware. So, people are looking to get off that.”

Kurtz added that CrowdStrike has also seen “significant demand” from channel partners, also citing the addition of former Symantec partners to its ranks.

“Partners across the globe are increasingly turning to CrowdStrike as their partner of choice as Symantec abandons large segments of the market and customers desperately need to protect the remote workforce,” Kurtz said.

“This is contributing to the strength of our pipeline with accepted deal registrations for partners increasing over 200 percent in Q1 compared with the same quarter last year.”

The company posted strong growth in Q1, with an 85 percent increase in revenue to US$178.1 million, 8 percent of which came from its Asia-Pacific business.

“CrowdStrike delivered another exceptional quarter with results well exceeding our expectations across the board,” Kurtz said.

“Our strong performance demonstrates our ability to execute at peak levels and protect our customers even in light of a global crisis.”