Consolidation needed in industry

Dubai

Lookout, which has just opened an office in Dubai and the hub for Middle East, Central Africa, North Africa and Turkey, sees a need for consolidation in the security solutions providers’ space.

Gert-Jan Schenk, vice-president for EMEA at San Francisco-based Lookout Mobile Security, said that there too many vendors for the PC and server side.

“When looking at the mobile space, there is no large company like us and only a few,” he said.

Moreover, he added that the challenge in the internet of things (IoT) is that the IoT is not developed from a security perspective. The other challenge is that the operating systems are scattered. There are dozens and there is no standardisation.

In the mobile space, there are two platforms — Android and Apple.

“In order for security firms to secure an environment in IoT, it is a big challenge. Some of the large car manufacturers are going to adopt Android as the car operating system. In the IoT space, we will see consolidation happening,” he said.