Blue Coat snaps up Perspecsys as part of cloud masterplan

Blue Coat makes moves in the cloud access security broker (CASB) space

Security vendor Blue Coat has bought cloud security firm Perspecsys in a move it claims will tackle the threat public cloud poses to sensitive data.

Blue Coat's chief technology officer Hugh Thompson told CRN that his firm bought the San Francisco-based cloud data protection company to give it a foot in the door of the cloud access security broker (CASB) space.

Firms operating in the market – of which Perspecsys is one – are known as CASBs and layer security onto a company's data when it is uploaded to a public cloud platform such as Salesforce.com or ServiceNow.

This makes it safer for users to share sensitive data more freely without the fear of it falling into the wrong hands, claims Thompson.

He says that because the CASB market will grow "significantly" over the next few years, snapping up Perspecsys – which he claims is a leader in this space – gives Blue Coat the advantage over rivals such as McAfee or Websense, which he says do not have CASB capabilities.

Blue Coat and Perspecsys have offices in locations across the globe and Thompson said that although it is still early days, Blue Coat regularly embraces newly acquired teams without making cuts.

"We have a great track record when it comes to retaining teams," he said.

He added that Blue Coat is a completely channel-driven company whereas Perspecsys is largely direct, but it is too soon to say what the plan is in terms of integrating the duo's go-to-market strategies.

Thompson claims Blue Coat has a strong presence in the European market and a good group of partners in the region. With data protection reform looming, Thompson believes this is the place to be as a security vendor.

"Europe is ground zero for privacy legislation; we want to own this space as well as the CASB space," he said.