Fortinet

Fortinet, Inc. is an American multinational corporation founded in 2000 by brothers Ken and Michael Xie. The company sells high performance network security products and services including their flagship integrated network security solution, the FortiGate firewall. Fortinet distributes its systems and subscription-based services using the channel partner sales method via more than 20,000 partners worldwide. Fortinet is positioned as the revenue leader in unified threat management (UTM) solutions.

Fortinet competes in the UTM and network security industry, and has the third-highest market share in security appliances after Cisco Systems and Check Point.

History

In 1993, 29-year-old Ken Xie started Stanford Information Systems (SIS) with classmates and friends to develop and sell software-based firewalls. The part-time venture led Xie to realize the limitations of software-based firewalls and in 1997 he founded NetScreen with Yan Ke and Feng Deng. NetScreen developed ASIC-based Internet security systems and appliances and paved the way for what would become one of Fortinet's key technologies. In 2004 NetScreen was sold to Juniper Networks for $4 billion.