Websense moves in on SurfControl acquisition

Channel players were left reeling after a shock statement of intent by Websense to acquire rival SurfControl for £210m last week.

However, Harnish Patel, senior vice-president EMEA at SurfControl, said the company was not allowing the bid to detract from everyday business.

“The deal is still subject to both Office of Fair Trading and Department of Justice approval before it is given the go ahead,” he said. “That is likely to take at least four to five months before anything changes and the acquisition can proceed. Our personal focus is the current quarter and meeting the needs of partners and customers. In our latest results we have seen double digit growth across EMEA in all of our three core product offerings.”

Steve Pearce, managing director of SurfControl’s sole UK distributor DNS Arrow, said: “This is just another example of the pace of consolidation in the security vendor market. DNS Arrow enjoys a strong relationship with SurfControl and has a long track record with Websense.

“There is nothing a distributor like DNS Arrow can do about this development. As ever, we continue to invest our expertise and resources behind vendors that see our value and want to work with us in the future.”

However, Alan Reid, managing director of distributor Sentryst – which used to partner with Websense but now works with rival St Bernard Software – saw an advantage.

“It will be interesting to see how this impacts on the distribution business,” he said. “However, from our point of view it means there will definitely be some confusion in the market and we plan to capitalise on that.”

Websense acquires Surf Control