• Security leaders face mounting tool sprawl with disconnected, siloed solutions slowing detection and draining analyst capacity.
• Broadcom’s Nate Fitzgerald breaks down why platformization has gained momentum and how it’s made its impact throughout the industry.
• Unified platforms cut operational drag, sharpen visibility, and keep teams focused on outcomes—not tool counts.

Security teams aren’t short on tools. They’re drowning in them. Analysts bounce between consoles, stitch together partial views of attacks, and spend hours triaging noise while burnout rises and real threats slip right through the cracks. 

This problem isn’t new for Nate Fitzgerald. In fact, it’s one he’s spent his entire career trying to fix. 

Head of Product Management at ESG, Nate has lived every phase of cybersecurity’s evolution. From early cloud email security to pre-hype machine learning and the rise of today’s platform architectures, Nate brings a unique, end-to-end perspective on where security needs to go next.

In his recent conversation with Dan Mellinger, Head of Communications at Broadcom, one question quickly surfaced: Are we chasing the latest shiny new tool—or are we chasing real security? And if we’re honest… do we even know the difference anymore?

When more tools start working against you

For decades, enterprises bought security the way they were structured—silo by silo. Email teams bought email controls, endpoint teams bought AV and EDR, and network teams bought proxies. It all made sense. Until it didn’t. 

Nate sees the same pattern everywhere:

• Operational drag. Console-jumping kills focus and slows investigations.
• Visibility gaps. Telemetry sits in isolated systems attackers are happy to exploit.
• Complexity sprawl. Tools multiply faster than teams can realistically operate them.
• Value kill. The more tools there are, the harder it is to optimize and demonstrate value.

Consumerization has also raised expectations for seamless, connected experiences—yet cybersecurity still forces defenders through a maze of dashboards and cognitive overhead.

It may sound like an oxymoron, but more tools doesn’t always mean more control. 

Stop calling every product bundle a platform

“Platform” might be one of the most overused terms in security, but Nate draws a sharper, more useful boundary. 

A platform that’s actually comprehensive spans multiple control points—endpoint, network, data protection, detection, and response—built on shared identity, telemetry policy, and intelligence. You could compare a true security platform to a SIEM, but with unified native telemetry in place of stitched-together logs. It’s the same spirit of centralization, minus the overhead and fragility.

Platformization isn’t bundling. It’s engineering. And it can deliver practical advantages. A platform should:

• Configure identity once, not in five different consoles.
• Flow intel automatically between tools, instead of manually stitching it together.
• Work from a console that doesn’t fry your brain with context switching.
• Rely on a unified data layer built for correlation, not duct-taped log parsing.
• Get the full picture of an investigation in minutes, not hours.
• Cut down on tool switching, giving time back that adds up.
• Create fewer blind spots in your environment with enhanced visibility.
• Turn raw data into insights teams can actually execute on.

This is the kind of cohesion security teams have needed for years. A model where teams can move faster with less friction, spending more time defending instead of wrestling with their tools.

Practical steps toward platformization

Going from a pile of tools to a real platform doesn’t happen overnight, but the path is clearer than most teams think. Here’s how you can start making meaningful progress:

• Map where tooling overlaps creates drag. Identify the switches, hops, and handoffs that slow investigations.
• Prioritize unifying control points—not adding new tools. Endpoint, network, and data are the foundation.
• Choose platforms built on native telemetry, not stitched-together integrations. Bundling does not equal platformization.
• Reduce console count before expanding capabilities. Shrink complexity to expand outcomes.

Looking ahead, the next generation of category leaders won’t win by stacking more logos into a portal. They’ll win by proving measurable outcomes: Faster detection, tighter containment, fewer manual steps, and less drag on already-stretched SOC teams. After all, security isn’t measured by tool count. It’s measured by whether your defenses actually improve.

For the full picture of platformization’s future, tune in to the full SECURITY.COM The Podcast episode with Dan and Nate. 

Find it wherever you listen:

✔️ YouTube

✔️ Spotify

✔️ Apple Podcasts