NTT Com Security chief drops hint over Didata union

Bringing capabilities of former Integralis business, Didata and US outfit Solutionary under one roof "would make sense", according to Simon Church

The chief executive of NTT Com Security has for the first time hinted that some sort of physical union with fellow NTT investment Dimension Data could be on the cards.

Talking to CRN, Simon Church admitted he "would not be surprised" if Japanese telecoms giant NTT moves to bring its various security investments under one roof.

NTT acquired a 78 per cent stake in security integrator NTT Com Security, then Integralis, in 2009 for €75m (£59.5m) before buying Didata outright a year later for £2.1bn.

Although NTT Com Security and Didata have for several years co-operated on projects, market sources point to lingering tensions between their respective salesforces in instances where customers have asked for dual quotes.

NTT, whose backbone carries 40 per cent of the world's traffic, also bought US managed security provider Solutionary last year.

Church said it "would make sense" for NTT to bring these three brands together under one roof, adding that he would support such a move. He would not be drawn on what any such tie-up would look like, nor the timeline or branding.

Church said NTT Com Security and Didata, a 23,000-strong global network integrator that provides security as part of its wider offering, already enjoy a strong relationship.

"We are committed to achieving the same thing, which is market dominance in the security solutions space," he said.

"Didata comes from the angle of security as part of a larger solution in the comms, cloud or networking space, whereas we are a specialist player. Probably the best way to describe it is we are very much Special Forces when it comes to security solutions; we go very deep. Didata is more of an infantry battalion to our very specialist airdrop into a situation. But we work with each other; if they want SAS-type activity, we are the guys to do it."

The world's largest telco, NTT is known for taking a considered, consensus-based view of change, which explains why the two brands have been kept separate for four years. The fact Prime Standard-listed NTT Com Security remains 22 per cent publicly owned has also made any integration with other NTT companies less straightforward and would colour any moves in this direction in the future.

NTT Com Security posted revenues of €226.9m in its last financial year, with the UK generating €82.6m of that. Having acquired fellow Cisco Gold partner NextiraOne earlier this year, Didata is on a mission to double revenues to $12bn over the next five years.

Church said NTT Com Security, which now generates just 40 per cent of its gross contribution from product resale, had benefitted greatly from the Tokyo-based giant's scale.

"It has enabled us as a security provider sitting on that backbone to predict things before they happen, based on traffic patterns," he said.