At each stage, you usually run multiple vendors and platforms. How, as an agency or even as an investigator, do you determine which platform is the primary one for your first pass?

What makes the difference? Sometimes it boils down to marketing and preference. From the Magnet side, we found that some people had been using the Cellebrite suite of products for analytics. They were comfortable with it. It may not have been as flashy or had a user interface like all these Windows-driven ones, but they liked it, knew it, and it was reliable. They would use it until you could prove there was something more capable or efficient, and sometimes just convincing them to buy it.

At each stage, you usually run multiple vendors and platforms. How, as an agency or even as an investigator, do you determine which platform is the primary one for your first pass?

From a sales perspective, you try to introduce a product at no cost or low cost to get them to try it, become comfortable with it, and see its value.

During your time selling for Grayshift and Magnet, what were the biggest developments in terms of market position or competitive advantages?

That would probably relate to the security updates and changes each platform introduces to their operating systems. When dealing with vulnerability research, there's always a way to get in, and you have to identify what that vulnerability might be. If manufacturers discover that a particular exploit is being used to gain access, they generally correct or stabilize that vulnerability. For example, when iOS 15 was released, that was an event where everyone was locked out for a period of time, and I noticed a significant difference in the philosophy of Cellebrite versus Magnet, or at that time, Grayshift. Grayshift would routinely push out updates every two to three weeks, whereas Cellebrite would withhold their updates to encourage license renewals or upgrades. This reflects a sales mentality focused on upselling customers. It felt like being nickeled and dimed, constantly asked for more money. Grayshift gained more customers by making all updates free and available throughout the license period. If you had a year-long license, any updates were accessible. In contrast, Cellebrite would restrict updates to certain license tiers, prompting customers to upgrade. I believe Cellebrite lost many customers this way, and we capitalized on that as a selling point.