As I was reviewing Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Mobile Data Protection, not surprisingly I found that nearly every competitor on that grid offers more than just data encryption. With anti-virus and firewall solutions being the primary focus, data encryption literally seems to be a check mark on their existing arsenal.

So how does one innovate when the focus is on a “million” other things to address customer’s security needs?

Let me paint a little picture to give you some perspective. It is a no brainer that within the full disk encryption (FDE) space, self-encrypting drives (SEDs) or hardware encryption will take over software encryption in the near future. It is because the said technology is simple and least disruptive, since the encryption takes place on the hard drive; without being dependent on any software, OS, etc. SEDs are built based on Opal specifications that are put together by Trusted Computing Group (TCG). The latest Opal specification (2.0) was published back in 2012, which many vendors on the MQ have yet to support.

The fact of the matter is that there are a very few software vendors out there who focus solely on data encryption and key management. WinMagic does! And we have a long history of innovation within the FDE space. Innovations such as PBConnex that changed the FDE management landscape by providing pre-boot network authentication. It utilizes network based resources to authenticate users, enforce access controls, and manage end point devices before the operating system loads. Think about utilizing the capabilities of PBConnex on SEDs, TCG Enterprise Drives, BitLocker, FileVault 2, all from a single pane of glass!

So, depending on your needs, there is a grocery store where you can choose to buy your groceries from and an electronics store where you can choose to buy your television from, but also a store that has both, but doesn’t offer as much variety found in the specialist stores.

Choosing the best FDE solution should be done with the same perspective in mind. Where would you rather buy your FDE from??