HP and IBM Shake Up Security Market
IBM’s purchase of Watchfire was followed by HP’s acquisition of SPI Dynamics in security arms race
December 26, 2007 —
Much like the movie industry, two summer blockbusters dominated the year’s software security market. Hewlett-Packard waited barely a month after IBM had announced its intent to acquire Watchfire in June, to put together its own box office hit by purchasing SPI Dynamics. The two security plays demonstrate the commitment of the major software companies to instilling software development with security.
IBM’s purchase of Watchfire brought the latter company’s application security tool under the IBM Rational software brand, and IBM has since integrated its Rational software quality management tools with Watchfire’s security and compliance testing services. IBM officials noted that Watchfire also complements the company’s Tivoli access, identity and compliance management software offerings, as well as the work of IBM Internet Security Systems. Watchfire does so by extending security and compliance testing as an integrated element of the application development life cycle.
HP’s acquisition of SPI Dynamics was completed Aug. 1, and the entire line of products was swept under HP’s umbrella, becoming the Application Security Center. SPI Dynamics’ Atlanta office remains for the moment, along with most of the company’s staff and services, including the SPI Labs security research and development facility.
Redmond Wasn’t Buying
Perhaps the most intriguing acquisition was the one that didn’t happen, as Microsoft stood pat while HP and IBM made their big plays into the space. Some experts claim that Microsoft can use a top-quality security solution to go along with Visual Studio Team System. Some argue that rather than creating its own remedy for the lack of security in Visual Studio, the best way for the company to cure this weakness in its portfolio is through acquiring an established security player.
With the dust settled after the completion of the two major acquisitions of 2007, some companies that still remain on the application security landscape include Fortify Software, Klocwork and Ounce Labs. With Microsoft, Borland Software, Oracle and Sun Microsystems among the major players that still lack integrated security within their IDEs, it will be interesting to see if other acquisitions come to pass.
Though IBM and HP stole the show this year with regard to application security, more emphasis was also put on the amount of protection involved in emerging technologies.
The OpenAJAX Alliance announced OpenAJAX Hub version 1.1, a small JavaScript library that allows multiple AJAX toolkits to work together on the same page. One of the key problems with keeping mashups secure, according to David Boloker, CTO of emerging technologies at IBM and a founder of the alliance, is that they come from multiple domains. OpenAJAX Hub 1.1 tries to remedy this, he said, by isolating mashups into secure sandboxes, and enabling client/server messaging.
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