It had been a few years, so with much anticipation, and not a little trepidation, the masses once again descended on San Francisco for the RSA Conference. It's good to be back - what did we learn?
The Analyst Team

Andrew Braunberg
Principal Analyst
Andrew supports Omdia's Cybersecurity Operations (SecOps) Intelligence Service research practice, guiding vendor, service provider, and enterprise clients. He provides thought-leading analysis on technologies, trends, and innovations in enterprise security operations centers (SOCs), and specifically on the proactive technologies used to avoid breach such as vulnerability management and attack surface management.
Andrew has been covering, researching, and speaking on topics related to enterprise information technology for approximately 20 years. Prior to joining Omdia (formerly Ovum) in 2022, Andrew spent five years at NSS Labs where he led the analyst group and worked closely with the company’s security product testing team.
Prior to NSS, Andrew spent more than a decade at GlobalData (formerly Current Analysis), where he managed the enterprise team and was the firm’s principal security analyst. Over his career, Andrew’s coverage has ranged from endpoint protection suites to network security appliances and solutions for protecting cloud-based assets.

Curtis Franklin
Senior Analyst, Security Operations, Enterprise Security Management
Curtis Franklin Jr. is Senior Analyst at Omdia, focusing on enterprise security management. Curtis has been writing about technologies and products in computing and networking since the early 1980s. He has been on staff and contributed to technology-industry publications including BYTE, ComputerWorld, CEO, Enterprise Efficiency, ChannelWeb, Network Computing, InfoWorld, PCWorld, Dark Reading, and ITWorld.com on subjects ranging from mobile enterprise computing to enterprise security and wireless networking.
Previously, he was senior editor of Dark Reading, editor of Light Reading's Security Now and executive editor, technology, at InformationWeek where he was also executive producer of InformationWeek's online radio and podcast episodes.
Curtis is the author of thousands of articles, the co-author of five books, and has been a frequent speaker at computer and networking industry conferences across North America and Europe. His most recent books, Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center, and Securing the Cloud: Security Strategies for the Ubiquitous Data Center, with co-author Brian Chee, are published by Taylor and Francis.
When he's not writing, Curtis is a painter, photographer, cook, and multi-instrumentalist musician. He is active in running, amateur radio (KG4GWA), the MakerFX maker space in Orlando, FL, and is a certified Florida Master Naturalist.

Hollie Hennessy
Senior Analyst, IoT Cybersecurity
Hollie provides insight into the fascinating and fast-moving domain of IoT cybersecurity.
Hollie has a range of experience in research. She began her career in the legal sector, writing and researching for expert witness reports on the labor market. She then moved into product testing, with a consumer protection focus. In this role, she was responsible for managing comparative tests of various technology products, as well as regular testing and investigative work into the security of these products.
She has published articles in Which?, one of the UK’s largest subscription magazines, produced by the country’s largest consumer organization; and Computing magazine.

Maxine Holt
Senior Research Director, Cybersecurity
Maxine Holt leads the Omdia cybersecurity research, developing a comprehensive research program in this area to support vendor, service provider, and enterprise clients in the areas of infrastructure security, security operations, data security, and identity, authentication, and access
Maxine rejoined Omdia (as Ovum) in 2018, following two years at the Information Security Forum (ISF) developing research in areas including Protecting the Crown Jewels, Securing Collaboration Platforms, and Building Tomorrow’s Security Workforce. Prior to the ISF, Maxine spent 15 years in research at Ovum, including security, having started her career as a software developer in the financial services industry and working in consulting for the financial services and internet sectors. Maxine is a regular speaker at events and contributes articles to high-profile publications in cybersecurity.

Fernando Montenegro
Senior Principal Analyst, Cybersecurity
Fernando is a Senior Principal Analyst on Omdia’s cybersecurity research team, based in Toronto, Canada. He focuses on the Infrastructure Security Intelligence Service, which provides vendors, service providers, and enterprise clients with insights and data on network security, content security, and more.
Fernando’s experience in enterprise security environments includes network security, security architecture, cloud security, endpoint security, content security, and antifraud. He has a deep interest in the economic aspects of cybersecurity and is a regular speaker at industry events.
Before joining Omdia in 2021, Fernando was an industry analyst with 451 Research. He previously held a variety of operations, consulting, and sales engineering roles over his 25+ years in cybersecurity, always focusing on enterprise security at organizations including vArmour, RSA, Crossbeam, Hewlett Packard, and Nutec/Terra. Fernando holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science and different industry certifications.

Eric Parizo
Managing Principal Analyst
As Managing Principal Analyst, Eric oversees research quality, innovation, and staff development within the Omdia Cyber research group. He also serves as the lead analyst for Omdia's Cybersecurity Operations (SecOps) Intelligence Service research practice, guiding vendor, service provider, and enterprise clients. He provides thought-leading analysis on technologies, trends, and innovations in enterprise security operations centers (SOCs), and specifically the thread detection, investigation, and response (TDIR) lifecycle.
In addition to SecOps, he contributes to Omdia Cyber’s coverage of mergers, acquisitions, industry events, and other overarching cybersecurity market trends globally, and also oversees Omdia Cyber’s social media efforts, including the Omdia research page on Dark Reading.
Eric has been covering, researching, or speaking on topics related to enterprise information technology for approximately 20 years. Prior to joining Omdia (formerly Ovum) in 2019, Eric spent four years at GlobalData (formerly Current Analysis), where his research focused on tracking and analyzing enterprise network security product segments, as well as top-tier enterprise security vendor technology and strategy.
Eric previously spent 15 years as a technology journalist and a multimedia editor at leading B2B publisher TechTarget, most recently serving as executive editor for the Security Media Group. He is a nine-time ASBPE award winner, the B2B publishing industry's most prestigious award for excellence.

Don Tait
Senior Analyst, Identity, Authentication, Access
Don is Omdia’s Senior Analyst for the cybersecurity team, bringing more than 20 years of research, consulting, and insights experience to his role as a lead analyst in the area of identity, authentication, and access.
Don has provided analyses on smart cards, payment and banking cards, near-field communications (NFC), and contactless credentials. He has presented the findings from his reports at many events and has written feature articles on his areas of expertise for leading journals and publications. Prior to joining Omdia, Don was a telecoms research analyst at Frost & Sullivan, responsible for the firm's broadband services subscription. He was also a marketing consultant at MSI Reports Limited, where he wrote industrial, healthcare, and telecommunications reports. Don has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in business studies from Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. He is based in the UK.

Rik Turner
Principal Analyst, Emerging Technologies
Rik is a principal analyst in Omdia's IT security and technology team, specializing in cybersecurity technology trends, IT security, compliance, and call recording. Rik provides analysis and insights on market evolution and helps end users determine what type of technology and which vendor they should pursue.
Rik has also worked in Omdia's financial services technology team, with a specialization in capital markets technology. Prior to joining Informa (now Omdia), he worked as an IT journalist, specializing in networking and security. He was also a foreign correspondent in Brazil, where he worked, among others, for the Financial Times and The Economist.
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