NTT Com Security and Didata tie-up plans unveiled

NTT wants to acquire 100 per cent stake in NTT Com Security and unite its security platform with those of three other brands

The security platforms of NTT Com Security and Dimension Data are to be brought together under plans announced by the duo's mutual parent, Japanese telco NTT.

NTT announced this week it intends to boost its stake in NTT Com Security (formerly Integralis) to 100 per cent and unify its security platform with those of several other of its businesses around the globe.

This includes most notably the security platform of Dimension Data, the global IT services/VAR NTT acquired in 2010. Recent US acquisition Solutionary and the NTT Innovation Institute in California are the other two brands involved.

NTT Com Security said in a statement to CRN that the move "will not affect its current business, employees, customers or partners".

NTT Com acquired a 78 per cent stake in Germany-based Integralis in 2009. The firm was renamed as NTT Com Security in 2013 and is still listed on the Prime Standard, despite NTT Communications Deutschland now being a 93.01 per cent shareholder.

NTT said it now intends to enter into negotiations to merge NTT Com Security into NTT Communications Deutschland, thereby gobbling the remaining 6.99 per cent of its shares "against adequate cash compensation". Prior to the proposal, NTT also upgraded NTT Communications Deutschland from an indirectly to a directly owned subsidiary.

NTT said its plans to unify its various security platforms - as hinted at by NTT Com Security's former CEO last December - are in response to "increasing demand across our client base" for cyber-security solutions.

"For NTT's clients, we will bring together the combined power of the security platforms of NCS [NTT Com Security], Solutionary, Dimension Data, and the NTT Innovation Institute to provide a more holistic security offering," NTT said.

"Over the coming years NTT will increase investments in developing a broader IT security value proposition to take to market through NTT's subsidiaries such as Dimension Data, NTT Communications and NTT Data. The significantly enhanced level of security service will span the full network layer: from infrastructure to applications, and cyber-defense, supported by information and communications technologies."

Ismaning-based NTT Com Security - which recently appointed a new CEO following the departure of Simon Church - posted a net loss of €17.3m on revenues of €264.1m for calendar year 2014. It employs 840 staff.

Nebraska-based IT security consultancy Solutionary, which NTT acquired in 2013, employs 300 staff, while security R&D outfit NTT Innovation Institute has 40 staff.

Dimension Data, meanwhile, is a 30,000-strong IT services giant whose key vendor partners include Cisco and EMC. In the security space, Didata counts Check Point among its key allies, holding Four-Star status with the vendor in the UK, just as NTT Com Security does.

In a statement, NTT Com Security added: "Being more closely aligned at NTT Group level will provide NTT Com Security with greater access to other parts of the NTT organisation and make its services-led security offerings more relevant to the various business lines overall. It also re-enforces NTT's commitment to security and to its people, providing improved global career opportunities across the whole of NTT."