Summary
- Datadog's evolving security capabilities are compelling.
- Datadog has competitive advantages to win in the SecOps and IT-Ops segments.
- These capabilities will uphold its growth factor as it expands its monetizable market.
- A closer look at the evolving capabilities shows an attractive platform highly positioned for the future of work.
Datadog (DDOG) announced innovative products and features at Dash 2020, its annual developer conference. Besides the regular updates that will have competitors wondering how a peer can be innovating so fast, we believe Datadog's strategy of "breaking down IT silos" will have far-reaching effects in adjacent IT segments.
Going forward, the shifting reality for competitors in IT-Ops and SecOps is undeniable. Below, we explore some of the value-creating capabilities.
Competitive Difference
Security Operations/Cloud Security
Spending on Cloud Security is predicted to increase by 33% becoming a $585M market this year - Gartner
The growing adoption of cloud-based DevOps platforms is challenging the positioning of cybersecurity players. DevOps players have the first claim to cloud infrastructure assets and data lanes as DevOps teams are staffed from the application development stage to the deployment phase. As soon as a project hits production, the need to staff a SecOps team becomes more critical. This explains Datadog's strategic focus on improving its shift-left (pre-production) testing and monitoring capabilities via the recent acquisition of Undefined Labs and the general availability of Private Locations for Synthetic Monitoring.
Source: Wayback Machine
The primary copy on Datadog's website positioned it as a "Modern monitoring and analytics platform" until last month. It is interesting to know that the text has now changed as it's evident in hindsight that "analytics" is a category differential that doesn't sell the real power of Datadog's capabilities in cybersecurity. Today, the text positions Datadog as a "Modern monitoring and security platform." By using shift-left testing capabilities to move the market towards its strong side, Datadog can innovate in DevSecOps to expand its total addressable market. Pre-production testing is where Datadog's sales team gets to build lasting relationships with its customers as it evolves its SecOps and cloud security capabilities. This is a real competitive advantage.
