Sramana: Today, does Palo Alto Networks still sell just one product? Nir Zuk: Yes, although we have added a lot of features to it. We have mid-range and low-end platforms.
Sramana: Cost of development is also attributed to quality design. Perhaps you gained significant savings because of that? Nir Zuk: We saved money because we were able to hire extremely high quality engineers in the United States. You can’t hire the same quality of engineers in China or India.
Sramana: Who were your first customers? Were they in the financial industry? Nir Zuk: No, the finance industry is hard to get into. Our first customers were high-tech companies here in Silicon Valley. One of our first customers was SanDisk, a cutting-edge company. We also had an Constellation Energy, a Fortune 500 company on the
Sramana: How did it make you feel to watch your IPS drop to last in the marketplace when you were at Juniper? Nir Zuk: I did not like Juniper at all. The first day after they acquired NetScreen they came and explained to us that we did not know what we were doing and that
Sramana: When you did your validation, did you find any other pain points? Nir Zuk: The major pain point was that companies were spending a lot of time and money on network security and monitoring security events on their network. They did not have the capability to stop security events. Companies would learn about a
SM: Why was it so difficult to get customers at OneSecure? NZ: A few months after we started the company, the [tech] bubble burst. Companies suddenly started watching their money. I also believe there was another key factor. At the end of the day, our managed service would replace the work that was done by
Nir Zuk is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CTO of Palo Alto Networks. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, he was the CTO at NetScreen Technologies, which was acquired by Juniper Networks in 2004. Prior to NetScreen, Nir was co-founder and CTO at OneSecure. Nir also served as a principal engineer at Check Point
SM: Whom do you charge, and what do you charge, for the Patient Ally system? BO: We offer that for free. SM: So you are subsidizing that with your Office Ally business? BO: Correct. Our EHR product is the least expensive in the country. It cost $9.95 a month which subsidizes Patient Ally.