Fortinet Inc. is on a roll. Coming off a strong Q1 2025 with earnings outpacing market growth despite macroeconomic uncertainty, the company is cementing itself as a cybersecurity innovation powerhouse.

But momentum doesn’t guarantee what comes next. How can Fortinet build on its successes across firewalls, SD-WAN and operational technology security?

“The threat’s moving super fast — it’s even moving faster these days than it was when I joined Fortinet 19 years ago,” said John Whittle (pictured), chief operating officer of Fortinet. “We’re focused on engineering at speed to stay ahead of the threat. And you can see it, based on the accelerating customer adoption that we’ve had, growing faster than the market. Our goal is to show that we’re protecting customers and adding value to customers better than the competition.”

Whittle spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier during an exclusive CUBE Conversation at theCUBE’s Palo Alto studios. They discussed Fortinet’s playbook — engineer fast, build natively, serve relentlessly — as a winning formula in the relentless cybersecurity landscape. (* Disclosure below.)

Speed, scale and simplicity highlight Fortinet’s cybersecurity innovation playbook

Fortinet’s success hinges on conscientious speed, both in innovation and execution. The company’s strategy of building organically, rather than bolting on disparate acquisitions, ensures deep product integration. A shared operating system across firewalls, SD-WAN and SaaS offerings simplifies deployment and accelerates customer time to value, according to Whittle. That tight integration also translates into higher operating margins and a smoother customer experience.

“You have that situation where the threat landscape is taking a step function up in terms of the challenge,” Whittle said. “Then you have cybersecurity skills shortages where customers just don’t have enough people to protect against this evolving threat landscape. That’s an area where we can add a lot of value to customers by coming in there and being their trusted partner.”

Additionally, with over 500 AI-related patents, Fortinet excels at practical, outcome-driven AI deployments. From threat detection to automated incident response, the company’s AI-powered SecOps tools help customers solve problems, not just identify them, Whittle added.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with John Whittle:

(* Disclosure: Fortinet Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Fortinet nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE