The most complete version of the buy-a-second-stack answer, and the most architecturally consequential provider in this series for a Microsoft estate. CrowdStrike now sits inline in the Entra authentication flow, which makes it a second policy decision point in front of the one you built.
Microsoft operating Microsoft is the baseline case every other provider is implicitly priced against. What Defender Experts declines to cover is the fastest way to work out what you actually need from anyone else.
The name that comes up first in most mid-market conversations, and the reason is the delivery model rather than the technology. The platform question and the delivery question have different answers, and the second one gets less scrutiny than it deserves.
The MDR question is not which provider is best. It is whether you are buying a second security stack, operators for the one you already own, or a provider who replaces the layer your security data lives in, and who holds the authority to act inside your tenant.
