Spending spree heralds era of unified solutions
As vendors plug the gaps in their portfolios, resellers look to fulfil their customers' demands
The industry caught acquisition fever last week after four security vendors and two speech solution vendors became involved in purchases.
Anti-virus and internet security vendor Trend Micro acquired anti-spyware vendor InterMute; Novell acquired Linux security firm Immunix; and ScanSoft acquired Nuance Communications for $221m.
Eva Chen, chief technology officer at Trend Micro, said the acquisition, for an undisclosed amount, was part of the vendor's strategy to increase its product portfolio.
"This is our first acquisition in the spyware market. Viruses and spyware are different, so we needed the expertise of InterMute to develop an integrated solution," she said.
Mukesh Gupta, managing director of distributor e92plus, agreed. "This is really good news. Our customers have been screaming out for a single anti-virus and anti-spyware product," he said.
Also within the security sector, Novell's acquisition of Immunix, again for an undisclosed sum, saw it take on board the vendor's specialist host-based application security products for the Linux platform.
Crispin Cowan, chief technology officer of Immunix, said: "We are excited to be joining forces with Novell and gaining the ability to provide our solution to a global market."
Immunix's AppArmor product will now be branded under the Novell name. However, Novell stressed that the Immunix arm will continue to provide security from external or internal attacks, viruses, and malicious applications for the Linux platform and other applications.
Scott Fletcher, managing director of Novell reseller ANS, said: "This is positive for us. Novell is filling in the gaps in its Linux range and looking to develop a more complete solution."
The acquisition frenzy also spread to the enterprise speech product market, with ScanSoft acquiring Nuance Communications.
ScanSoft will acquire all of Nuance's outstanding common stock and merge into a single company branded under the Nuance name and focused on speech solution products.
Mike Thompson, vice-president of international marketing at ScanSoft, said the acquisition will help to fend off competition from IBM and Microsoft.
"Nuance has a great presence in the speech recognition space, and combining with ScanSoft makes our assets even stronger. This will also make our partners' offerings stronger," he claimed.