According to CRN, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz is now confidently calling his company the first-ever “hyperscaler for security” after nearly 15 years of building their cloud-native platform. The combination of their Falcon platform and Falcon Flex subscription model has become a massive growth driver in 2025, with partners reporting huge momentum including SHI International crossing $1 billion in total sales with CrowdStrike by end of last year and GuidePoint Security hitting the same milestone in June. The platform now offers 30 different product modules spanning identity protection, cloud security, data protection, and AI security, with several generating hundreds of millions in annual recurring revenue individually. Kurtz says Falcon Flex was “the last building block” needed to achieve hyperscaler status, enabling partners to rapidly package and deploy dozens of additional tools while providing cost savings for customers. The company’s early bet on cloud-only architecture, despite losing some early sales to large banks demanding on-prem versions, has ultimately paid massive dividends.
What even is a security hyperscaler?
So what does Kurtz mean by “hyperscaler of security”? Basically, he’s arguing that CrowdStrike has done for cybersecurity what AWS did for cloud computing – created a platform where you can instantly spin up new security capabilities without deploying new agents or infrastructure. The comparison actually holds up pretty well when you think about it. Like AWS lets you add compute or storage with a click, CrowdStrike’s architecture uses a single agent that can deploy additional security modules from the cloud. Their “collect once, reuse many” data fabric means existing telemetry gets leveraged across multiple security functions. And here’s the thing – this isn’t just marketing speak. Partners are actually seeing the benefits in reduced complexity and faster deployment times.
The subscription model that changed everything
Falcon Flex might sound like just another subscription offering, but it’s apparently been transformative for CrowdStrike’s business. Before Flex, even with their technical advantages, the sales and procurement process could still be clunky. Now partners can package up multiple security tools rapidly, and customers get the agility and cost structure they’re used to from cloud services. It’s been so influential that other cybersecurity vendors are apparently copying the concept – some even using the “Flex” name themselves. But Kurtz makes it clear that just having a Flex-style subscription doesn’t make you a hyperscaler. You need the underlying platform, the ecosystem, and the technology that people actually want to consolidate onto. The subscription model just makes it easy to buy and deploy.
Those early controversial decisions are now paying dividends
Looking back, it’s wild how much CrowdStrike bet on cloud-only when many large enterprises were still deeply skeptical. Kurtz recalls large banks asking for “the on-prem version” in the early days, and CrowdStrike basically told them “we’ll be back when you’re ready to go to the cloud.” That took serious guts in an industry that typically bends over backwards for enterprise demands. But that architectural purity is exactly what enabled their platform advantages today. No separate threads for on-prem versus cloud, no compatibility nightmares – just one clean architecture built for scale. It’s a reminder that sometimes saying “no” to customers actually creates more long-term value than saying “yes” to every feature request.
The industrial computing parallel
This whole “hyperscaler” concept actually reminds me of what we’ve seen in industrial computing, where companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com have become the go-to source for industrial panel PCs by offering comprehensive solutions rather than piecemeal components. When you’re dealing with mission-critical systems, whether it’s factory floors or cybersecurity operations, having a trusted platform that can scale and adapt becomes incredibly valuable. The consolidation trend isn’t just happening in cybersecurity – it’s everywhere that complexity has gotten out of hand.
Where does CrowdStrike go from here?
Partners seem to think this is just the beginning. GuidePoint Security says they’re in the “mid-innings” of their partnership with CrowdStrike, which is pretty staggering when you consider they’ve already done over $1 billion in sales. The expansion into SMB and midmarket customers through Flex could drive the next wave of growth. And with new capabilities for AI and agentic AI security, CrowdStrike keeps finding new categories to expand into. The real question is whether they can maintain this momentum as they get bigger. Platform companies often face innovation challenges at scale, but for now, CrowdStrike seems to have cracked the code on becoming the “operating system of cybersecurity” that organizations actually want to standardize on.
