Palo Alto Going Public As Juniper Law Suit Hangs Overhead

In 2007, networking vendor Palo Alto released their first next generation firewall in an effort to shake up the market. Since then Palo Alto has grown from zero to a company that has 6,650 customers across 80 countries.

Palo Alto Networks is now taking the next step in the company’s evolution by going public with an IPO. Palo Alto is looking to raise as much as $175 million from the offering after growing the company rapidly in recent years.. Palo Alto generated $118.6 million in revenue in 2011, more than double the $48.8 million generated in 2010.

Though Palo Alto is on rapid revenue growth rate the company has not yet generated a profit. For 2011, net loss was reported at $12.5 million, which is an improvement over the $21.1 million lost in 2010.

Generating profit isn’t the only challenge that Palo Alto will face in the public marketplace. The company faces stiff competition as well as legal issues that it will have to deal with in order to be successful.

The Palo Alto approach to firewalls is one that delivers context aware security for network traffic. It’s an approach that was unique in 2007, but in 2012 it is one that has been adopted by multiple vendors, including networking giant Cisco. Cisco’s ASA CX firewall lineup announced at the end of February is all about contextual awareness.

Read the full story at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet:
NGFW Vendor Palo Alto Going Public

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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