Fortinet picks up threads of unravelled Woven

Coming together: Woven's switching technology will be incorporated into the Fortigate-5000

Security vendor Fortinet has raided the remains of fallen switching vendor Woven Systems to grab some of the firm's assets and intellectual property.

Woven specialised in 10Gb Ethernet switching kit, but a competitive marketplace and tough economic conditions saw the company go to the wall in May. Fortinet claimed it intends to combine Woven's technology with its own custom network and content processors.

Woven's technology will be integrated with the security vendor's Fortigate-5000 chassis-based appliance. Fortinet claimed the resulting improvement in switching power would allow quicker communications between security blades. The unified threat management specialist added that Woven's portfolio includes one of the world's smallest and best-performing 10GbE switches.

Ken Xie, chief executive of Fortinet, said: "Woven’s ASIC-driven approach to high performance is highly complementary to Fortinet’s own strategy for maximising performance through customised processors.

"This acquisition will harness the performance power of our respective technologies to offer tremendous benefits to customers who require the fastest and, often, the most mission-critical network security environments.”