Cybersecurity Market Defies Decades of Consolidation Predictions
For more than twenty years, industry observers have repeated a familiar refrain about cybersecurity: there are too many vendors, too many tools, and too much fragmentation. The conventional wisdom suggested that consolidation would eventually clean up the landscape, with platforms absorbing point solutions and competition thinning out to restore order. Yet this predicted consolidation has consistently failed to materialize.
The Persistent Expansion of Cybersecurity
Richard Stiennon, founder of IT Harvest and one of cybersecurity's longest-tenured analysts, has been hearing these consolidation predictions for twenty-five years. From his unique vantage point tracking approximately four thousand security vendors globally, Stiennon argues that the industry isn't consolidating in any traditional sense. Instead, it's undergoing a fundamental rewiring driven by continuous innovation, rapid artificial intelligence adoption, and a constantly shifting threat landscape.
"The idea that cybersecurity is consolidating like telecom or automotive once did misses what's happening beneath the surface," Stiennon explains. "Large vendors aren't buying startups to eliminate competition—they're acquiring them to absorb innovation."
From Engineering Insight to Industry Analysis
Stiennon arrived at this perspective through an unconventional path. Beginning his career in automotive engineering, he moved into the early internet era by launching an ISP, which was acquired during the first wave of digital infrastructure buildout. This experience led him to security-focused companies and eventually to Gartner, where he became one of the earliest analysts dedicated to covering cybersecurity as a standalone domain.
His engineering background shaped his analytical approach. While traditional analyst models tend to focus on top-tier vendors, Stiennon recognized that real market dynamics live in the long tail where innovation forms long before it becomes obvious to mainstream observers.
The Innovation Pipeline Versus Consolidation
The cybersecurity market operates differently from industries that have undergone traditional consolidation. When new threat classes emerge, startups form with intense focus on specific solutions. Once a category proves viable, larger players step in to acquire proven technology with established customer bases already attached.
This creates what Stiennon describes as an "innovation pipeline" rather than a roll-up strategy. The distinction matters because it explains why many attempts at forced platform consolidation fail. Companies that attempt to aggregate tools without deep integration or buyer-driven value often create complexity layered upon complexity.
Stiennon observes repeated failures among organizations that make consolidation their primary strategy rather than treating it as a potential outcome of successful innovation absorption.
Private Equity's Role in Market Evolution
Private equity firms often receive criticism in discussions about industry consolidation, but Stiennon offers a more pragmatic perspective. Firms like Thoma Bravo, he argues, aren't consolidators in the classic sense. Instead, they specialize in rebuilding companies that struggle to reinvent themselves under public market pressures.
These firms serve as a reset mechanism for cybersecurity companies that need restructuring or strategic redirection, contributing to the industry's ongoing evolution rather than simply reducing the number of competitors.
The Data-Driven View of Cybersecurity's Future
IT Harvest began as a simple spreadsheet tracking a few hundred vendors but has grown into a comprehensive dataset encompassing thousands of security companies globally. In 2022, Stiennon launched a dashboard to make this data searchable and usable at scale. The emergence of large language models has only accelerated the platform's value, enabling detailed mapping of vendors, products, categories, and relationships across the entire cybersecurity ecosystem.
This data-rich perspective reveals a market that continues expanding rather than contracting. As artificial intelligence adoption accelerates and threat landscapes evolve with increasing sophistication, the cybersecurity industry appears poised for continued growth and diversification rather than the consolidation that has been predicted for decades.
