climate and comms

  So there I was on the phone to an Analyst today explaining (at a fairly high level )   some of the basic features of LiveEnsure TM   when he says – “   ahh – I get it – this is identical to Bank of America’s SiteKey/Site Pass system .”    Not having the details of said banks system at my fingertips – I was unable to correct the Analyst on his incorrect conclusion with any hard science.    We were also running out of time,   it was a bad line and…all I could say was – it is not the same – there is much,   much more going on under the hood with LiveEnsure TM .     So why is BofA’s SiteKey TM / Site Pass TM authentication system NOT identical to LiveEnsure TM   ? ·                 Device ID.    Although both ostensibly have a ‘hardware device recognition’ component – the BofA solution relies upon the re-referencing of a cookie (downloaded at registration – a simple subset of browser-aware attributes) by the Banks’ site to determine the ‘identity’ of the device.    This cookie r

Experts from Gartner have said that the recent 'froth' of M&A activity in the security space does not constitute a 'trend'.   While 'one swallow does not a summer make'  I would contend that this is in fact a trend and that it set to hold for at least another year.   Why? Well first of all the 'froth' was in fact more like a large set of Atlantic rollers breaking on the Cape coast!!!  Consider the number of deals that have taken place in the last 6 months ( see previous blog) crowned by the recent announcement by HP of its acquisition of Arcsight for $1.5bn. "   Hewlett-Packard  has agreed to buy high-end technology security company ArcSight for $1.5bn to profit from its customers’ increasing concerns about  protecting their data from hackers . The cash offer of $43.50 a share for Silicon Valley neighbour ArcSight was more than 50 per cent above where the company was trading before reports last month that it was courting buyers. It value

The tech sector and in particular the security sector within  has been extremely active during the past 6 months.  There have been numerous acquisitions that indicate an increased appetite for quality security assets.    Perhaps the most high profile of these was the recent acquisition of MacAfee by Inte l ( a $7.8bn transaction ) representing a premium of over 50% to the then prevailing market price.  A PE multiple of about 48 and 3.8 x Revenue. This was Intel’s largest ever acquisition. Symantec acquired Verisign’s Authentication business for $1.28bn - approximately 4 x revenues. (Second quarter revenues from this Unit was about $100m )  ( May ) ; CA has announced it will acquire Arcot systems for $200m in Q4 2010.  Arcot provides Identity Access Management and Authentication products  ( www.ca.com/www.arcot.com ) ;  VMWare has announced it will acquire Integrien and TriCipher .  (Sep)  HP has just announced it will acquire ArcSight for $1.5bn ( Sep)  Other deals over the per