[Cryptography] Market demands for security (was Re: Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN")

[Jerry Leichter]

On Sep 8, 2013, at 6:49 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> ...The moral is that we have to find other market reasons to use security. For example simplifying administration of endpoints. I do not argue like some do that there is no market for security so we should give up, I argue that there is little market for something that only provides security and so to sell security we have to attach it to something they want....
Quote from the chairman of a Fortune 50 company to a company I used to work for, made in the context of a talk to the top people at that company*:  "I don't want to buy security products.  I want to buy secure products."

This really captures the situation in a nutshell.  And it's a conundrum for all the techies with cool security technologies they want to sell.  Security isn't a product; it's a feature.  If there is a place in the world for companies selling security solutions, it's as suppliers to those producing something that fills some other need - not as suppliers to end users.

                                                        -- Jerry

*It's obvious from public facts about me that the company "receiving" this word of wisdom was EMC; but I'll leave the other company anonymous.