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I haven't blogged for over a week but what a day to get back into the swing of things!

IBM acquiring ISS for $1.3B is certainly an indication that they plan to be a player in the security space. In particular, this signals their serious intent in being a dominant player in security services - consulting and managed services. It's not about ISS's Proventia line which while interesting as a business is not in line with IBM strategic framework of moving lower margin appliances. IMHO, Proventia as a product line is history.

Here's the deal - IBM has historically resisted into the part of security that involves "keeping the bad guys out" i.e. firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention, etc... Their security strategy is about business-enabling security rather than business-protecting security. I know that's a broad generalization but from what I can tell, they've played in three major arenas - identity management (acquiring Access360 in 2002), security event management (GuardedNet via their Micromuse acquisition) and security services. This acquisition gets them a boost on the services side together with the expertise and software to pull it off. I'm not sure that IBM is done - don't be surprised if they make additional security services/MSSP deals to bulk up their services arm.

This is an acquisition that makes sense but where does that leave ISS's Proventia customers?

Posted by andreyee in Industry Trends |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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