Security Yearbook 2020 is a must read; and essential for your bookshelf

Security Yearbook 2020 by Richard Stiennon, is like multiple books in one. Richard Stiennon has been in the industry since 1995, Including Gartner, of Magic Quadrant renown.  It’s a history of the IT security industry, broken down by a double handful of categories. Contributions from such icons as Gil Shwed, Chris Blask, Ron Moritz, Barry Schwager, David Cowan, Sandra Toms, and Deborah Taylor Moore. It's also a directory (this will be dynamic, updated at www.security-yearbook.com) of 2,337 security companies, by name, state, country, and category. Don’t wait for a Kindle version. Dare to flip pages manually. “Only through understanding the continuum of what has come before and had led to the present can they begin to understand what the future holds” – Stiennon.

You’ll enjoy Security Yearbook 2020, regardless of whether you’re on the IT side or the business side of the fence. Yes, there will be acronyms. But you won’t drown in them and they’re defined. Novel idea, which many writers neglect to do.

The history of the industry isn’t linear. It’s more like a growing tangled web. Smaller companies, larger companies, start-ups, acquisitions, divestitures, the whole gamut, with many of the players intersecting, partnering, and/or competing more than once

Most of the companies in the book were founded before the word “Unicorn” became ubiquitous. “Doing an IPO is like doing basic training in the Army. It’s a very difficult process that tests your abilities” – Gil Schwed (Check Point Software). You’ll get a good feel for this.

The two largest contributors to the growth of the industry, the United States and Israel, whose collaboration goes back over 40 years. Sixteen major categories, sixty countries.

Sometimes, ego can drive innovation. Someone feels their ideas are not given the proper attention, and so, they start their own company. You’ll find example of this in the book, including Nir Zuk, who left Check Point Software to found One Secure, which started life as a managed security service and quickly morphed into one of the first intrusion prevention system providers.

You don’t have to read the book in order.   The book is both informative and entertaining. Those who live in one of the epicenters of security, be it network, end point, or data security, will find gems from their segment’s history.

Readers will find it entertaining (and probably have some interesting anecdotes of their own) about the history and the firms written about. Some of these stories would be best talked about with others at events like RSA, Black Hat, InfoSec or a Gartner event.

An index may have been useful, but hey. Then you’d get people jumping to the back to see if they’re “in the book” or not.