IBM to Buy ISS for $1.3 Billion 219
gerald626 writes "IBM announced today that they have formed an agreement to purchase ISS for 1.3 billion dollars." From the article: " The all-cash transaction of about $28 per share is meant to bolster IBM's ability to deliver security services to corporations, the company said. ISS builds network protection products and services, including intrusion detection and monitoring tools. IBM said it intends to use ISS's expertise and software to provide more robust security-related services to its corporate customers."
Internet Security Systems (Score:5, Informative)
Internet Security Systems! (The Article) (Score:2, Informative)
The all-cash transaction of about $28 per share is meant to bolster IBM's ability to deliver security services to corporations, the company said.
ISS builds network protection products and services, including intrusion detection and monitoring tools.
IBM said it intends to use ISS's expertise and software to provide more robust security-related services to its corporate customers.
"This acquisition will help IBM to provide companies with access to trained experts and leading-edge processes and technology to evaluate and protect against threats and enforce security policies," said Val Rahmani, general manager of infrastructure management services at IBM Global Services.
The ISS acquisition, expected to close in fourth quarter of this year, adds to a rapid-fire succession of big purchases at IBM. In August alone, IBM has announced plans to buy Webify Solutions, MRO Software and FileNet. The tab, if all the deals go through, will exceed $3.6 billion.
Looking to boost revenue from software and services, most of the company's acquisitions--which total more than 40 since 2003--have been software firms.
IBM is seeking to grow profits by creating a comprehensive product portfolio and deliver a combination of software and consulting services, according to company executives.
With ISS, Big Blue intends to deliver the company's products through consulting engagements and hosted services.
"By delivering an integrated security platform that is adaptable and extensible to address new threats and business requirements without incremental complexity and cost, ISS has delivered the foundation for delivering security as a service," said Tom Noonan, president and CEO of ISS.
IBM already offers some managed security services and includes security software in its Tivoli product line.
That's no Battle Station... (Score:4, Informative)
Internet Security Systems. www.iss.net
They do security. That is how IBM will derive security benefits from the purchase. At least that would be the going theory.
ISS has also apparently made a huge impression on Slashdot readers. *smirk*
Although buying a space station and fitting it with an Annihiliation Beam which they can use to hold the world for ransom to the tune of one... million... dollars, would seem to have some shareholder value as well, I didn't know that the shares in the Space Station were only 28$ a share. Or that shares even existed for the space station. It must be those wacky Russians trying to make another few million off space.
Re:Let Me Be... (Score:2, Informative)
She opened up her own restaurant [slashdot.org]
Doesn't anybody pay attention around here?
Why 1.3 billion is no money at all... (Score:2, Informative)
100% agree with you (Score:3, Informative)
As far as ISS goes on the IDS/IPS side, their products went from leader to lackluster. Snort, Tipping point, and Intrushield - need I say more?
Then on the vulnerability database side, you have the X-Force DB being demolished by the innovative Open Source Vulnerability Database [osvdb.org] led by real security gurus like Jericho, not to mention the other DBs like Secunia, NVD, etc.
ISS = vaguely reminds me of CA, corporate types taking good products and not keeping them updated, not innovating, and just trying to suck the blood from corporate customers.
Re:Yes i'm redundant (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pfffft! (Score:5, Informative)
> Not too long ago, ISS made the fateful decision to knife most of its IDS/IPS product lines in the back by discontinuing support for "General Purpose" servers and third party appliances, effectively forcing all of its enterprise customers to buy an "owned" ISS appliance (the Proventia series).
I'm guessing by "General Purpose" servers you are referring to the Network Sensor and Server Sensor products which could run on hardware you bought. The first Proventia appliance launched was the Proventia A, which was the Network Sensor software pre-installed on a rackmount, sold as a unit. In truth the Proventia A was not very different from the Network Sensor software because it was almost running the same software. The appliance came about because many customers did not wish to buy their own hardware -- they wished to have the appliance. On the other hand, many customers did still wish to buy their own hardware. Thus, Network Sensors, Server Sensors, and Proventia As are in fact all still fully supported. The exception is the slow phase-out of the least popular Nokia and Solaris platforms.
For more information on the Product Life Cycle of the above mentioned products, please see the Product Documentation for the product you're interested in:
Server Sensor -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php? product=15&family=7 [iss.net]
Network Sensor -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php? product=12&family=6 [iss.net]
Proventia A -- http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/docs.php? product=35&family=12 [iss.net]
Or for a full listing of products you can see the documentation for, please see: http://www.iss.net/support/documentation/index.php [iss.net]
There may have been some confusion on this point due to the wild popularity of the Proventia G and Proventia M products which is a completely different product and relies on completely different software. The older Network Sensor, Server Sensor, and Proventia A products are in fact still available, supported, and sold.
> Companies with large deployments of ISS RealSecure on now End of Lifed platforms suddenly found themselves offered a year of update support and another capital outlay to "upgrade" to Proventia appliances. Not many followed the company down that path, but the ones that did get "first cut" appliances found that they, well, sucked. The company then recentered on a more "appliance"-looking hardware platform, but, by then, the damage was done.
I believe you may have to be more specific to help resolve your confusion here. Perhaps you were on one of the least-popular platforms of Nokia or Solaris which has been slowly phased out to improve support for more popular products? Based on your mention of appliances, I can only guess you had a Network Sensor (since there is no such thing as a Server Sensor appliance)? The first appliances that came out were the Proventia As, which ran pretty much the same exact software as the Network Sensor software. So your frustration was perhaps due to the hardware? As I mentioned above, the Network Sensor software on many platforms including Linux is still fully supported.
> Then ISS took a market-leading desktop security product, BlackICE, and folded it into their IDS/IPS management product. The integration damn near killed a lot of existing BlackICE customers, not to mention the fact that succeeding software releases were, in many cases, incompatible with previous
Re:Pfffft! (Score:2, Informative)
Site Protector is (IMHO) a bloated piece of crap. I don't like security software that will only run on Windows (only recently supporting W2k3 SP1), requires SQL Server, and can't be accessed in any useful manner from a non-Windows machine. There is a browser-based component, but it doesn't have full functionality and has even more reduced functionality if the browser isn't IE.
The Proventia Desktop is one of the biggest disappointments for me. They took BlackICE, which was a decent product, and thoroughly screwed it up. I ran the test deployment for our shop, using only IT folks for the run-through, and ended up canning the entire project. It was slow, it was buggy, and the Virus Prevention would slow the box to an absolute crawl if the user tried to do anything with Java.
Re:Why would IBM... (Score:2, Informative)
What rather took the edge off discovering that, for me, was that I'd already come up with a rather convoluted bit of DHTML to do exactly the same effect.