Slashdot Mirror


EMC Buys RSA Security for $2.1B

jam244 writes to mention the news of RSA's purchase by EMC. The deal is expected to go through in late third or early fourth quarter of 2006. Once folded into the company, RSA will act as the company's information security division. From the article: "Stice said the proposed price for RSA was 'somewhat expensive,' but added that the deal has the potential to improve EMC's business mix, broaden its product portfolio and further penetrate the consumer security storage market."

34 of 47 comments (clear)

  1. Rivest and Stein by GrEp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So what is Rivest and Stein's piece of the pie?

    --

    bash-2.04$
    bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
    1. Re:Rivest and Stein by nuzak · · Score: 4, Informative

      Beats me, but Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman probably hold a lot of stock in the company.

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    2. Re:Rivest and Stein by DangerTenor · · Score: 1

      Don't you mean Adi Shamir, not Stein?

      --
      Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
    3. Re:Rivest and Stein by Dorceon · · Score: 2, Funny

      Someone's got Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein's Introduction to Algorithms on the brain.

      --
      What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
    4. Re:Rivest and Stein by GrEp · · Score: 1

      Haha. My bad. Spent way to much time reading CLRS. Don't post before the morning coffee.

      --

      bash-2.04$
      bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
  2. Good news... probably by andrewman327 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It is nice to see EMC moving a large part of its security stuff in house. I cannot say exactly what this will mean for the end user, but I hope that it will make security more integrated and, of course, more secure.

    --
    Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
  3. Same guys that bought VMWARE by dilute · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Watch for EMC to become a dominant player in the IT market, going way beyond disk drives and data storage. These folks are making some very strategic acquisitions.

    1. Re:Same guys that bought VMWARE by grumpyman · · Score: 1
      Watch for EMC to become a dominant player in the IT market, going way beyond disk drives and data storage. These folks are making some very strategic acquisitions.


      I don't know if they'll be a dominant player beyond disk/data as they have not change much since their company inception. They better be doing something. EMC has been selling their 10+ years old product without doing much to enhance it while digital storage in general has gotten so cheap these days. They has been charging their customers a ultra-high premium just for the peace of mind that "it never goes down".

    2. Re:Same guys that bought VMWARE by tgd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      EMC is not about disk drives and data storage, they're about central control of information technology.

      Look at all their market moves and aquisitions with that understanding, and they all make sense.

      They are focused as a laser beam right now.

    3. Re:Same guys that bought VMWARE by PCM2 · · Score: 1
      They are focused as a laser beam right now.

      With the notable exception, maybe, of that aforementioned VMware acquisition. So far the policy has been pretty laissez-faire ... no attempt to integrate VMware technology with their storage offerings. What's it all about?

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    4. Re:Same guys that bought VMWARE by Smallpond · · Score: 1

      EMC getting away from storage would be nuts.

      SAN storage is like the internet 20 years ago, wide open. Storage folks are starting to realize that when you have a lot of computers connected to a single RAID box, you need better protection of the data. Look for encrypted storage protocols to be built in at the hardware level. This will pave the way for running iSCSI over the internet to do remote copy and backup, for example.

    5. Re:Same guys that bought VMWARE by tgd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Centralize servers onto big iron using virtualization.

      Centralize storage onto big iron.

      Citrix will be next. Centralize desktops onto big iron.

    6. Re:Same guys that bought VMWARE by PCM2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You might think. But they aren't doing it. Their policy is hands off -- VMware stands pretty much on its own.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
  4. Oh, its R *S* A... by Shadow+Wrought · · Score: 1, Funny

    I was wondering what was going to happen to the dog. Never mind.

    --
    If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
  5. Complete list of acquisitions... by gasmonso · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Here's a complete list of mergers and acquisitions: http://www.emc.com/ir/mergers/index.jsp

    Looks like they've been busy :)

    http://religiousfreaks.com/
  6. Novell Directory Service [eDirectory] by mosel-saar-ruwer · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Same guys that bought VMWARE

    Novell, with somewhere between 100 million & 200 million installed seats of Novell Directory Services ["eDirectory"], has got to be the world's leading vendor of RSA-based identification, authorization, and encryption products.

    So if Novell ever goes belly-up, then it seems like EMC might be very interested in the bankruptcy sale.

    Oh, and did I mention that Novell has this software product called "Novell Storage Services"?

  7. Two dollars and 18 cents!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sweet, I had no idea a major crypto company could be had so cheap!

  8. Re:EMC FP? by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 5, Funny

    You forgot to sign your first post with EMC's private key, so I reject your claim.

    --

    There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
  9. What will this mean for the products by kinneh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm guessing some of the product's will get cut off. Going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing Most of the Keon family will get cut off, at least the toolkits with openssl and boncycastle as options for customers.
    The big question is if the CA too will be cut-off... there is lots of viable options here too Ejbca for example <shameless plug>There is commercial support available</shameless plug>.

  10. all going to crap by Schmots · · Score: 1, Interesting

    We have a 60TB EMC SAN with the NAS frontend application as well. It has been nothing but headaches and problems since we got it and we regreat the purchase every single day. We also use RSA, most notably for our vpn token links. I would hate to see something reliable and workable like RSA solutions go to crap because of EMC

    1. Re:all going to crap by treeves · · Score: 1

      FWIW, I don't have any experience using EMC's products but a company I used to work for made backplanes for them and believe me, they had the most stringent quality requirements of any customer, so it's probably not hardware problems that are giving you headaches.

      --
      ...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
    2. Re:all going to crap by Thinko · · Score: 1

      What kind of problems are you having with the Celerra? Is it sitting in front of a Clariion or a Sym? I honestly have nothing but good things to say about the EMC storage (Petabyte Scale) and SAN products I've worked with in the past. The support I've seen is unmatched by any other vendors I've worked with (*cough* especially other 2 or 3 letter acronym companies).

    3. Re:all going to crap by superpulpsicle · · Score: 1

      If you mean HDS, I'd have to say HDS products singlehandedly blow them away. The fact that you need that much EMC support behind an array that you paid $1 million for, is mind boggling. Is a sick business model but EMC now have something like a ratio of 4 salesguy to 1 engineer at most major datacenters. Good service? They just want you looking the other way.

  11. *Spock turns from his scope and says...* by Akardam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Captain, I'm detecting enormous levels of marketspeak and a high buzzword quotient from this article summary. It is highly illogical."

  12. Encrypted SAN traffic? Tasty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Interesting.. Could the day be far off when EMC offers a SAN solution that does front-to-back encryption? Encrypted on the platter, stays encrypted through your SAN, and gets decrypted at the multipath layer?

    That way, they could argue that they not only keep your storage secure physically, but logically as well. For shops that have geographically-spanned SANs, this could be a helluva selling point.

  13. Trying hard..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    EMC is trying really really hard to be a software company as hardware margins are constantly under pressure. In last couple of years, they have coughed up billions to buy companies like Documentum, VMWare, etc. which, seriously, were of questionable value to the company. To me, the company's acquistions look clueless.

    1. Re:Trying hard..... by sporkmonger · · Score: 1

      -chuckle-

      Well, we have a Documentum installation at work, and since it doesn't do file-deltas on versions and since most users don't understand the differences between "checkout" and "export" and "checkin" and "import", we frequently get 200MB flash files that have over 100 versions on them with no differences at all. That uses up a lot of disk space really, really fast.

      Guess who we buy our disks from?

  14. Am I the only one by bberens · · Score: 1

    who read that as two dollars and eighteen cents?

    --
    Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
    1. Re:Am I the only one by GotenXiao · · Score: 1
      I was going to say, "Have you been watching Tank Girl?", but it's two dollars and fifteen cents in that.


      T-Saint: How much did they pay you to spy on us?
      Tank Girl: Two dollars and fifteen cents!
      --
      Goten Xiao
  15. Why does... by sjs132 · · Score: 1

    Everthing has to be broadened and penetrated in marketing speak? ;)

    OT, I know... I know....

    --
    --- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
  16. oh, good... (*to self: aaaauuuggghhhh!!!!!) by xeno · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My old security consultancy was assimilated by Symantec. Our technological and biological distinctiveness was added to their own. Our individuality was irrelevant. We didn't even get to keep a sub-brand ("@stake, a Symantec Company") like Norton did. Now we're lost in the homogeneous blob. Of course, that was a now-obvious screw-up, because the sales people still say things like "our professional services staff is based on the expertise of @stake..." It's great for little yellow boxes of product, but two years on, the Symantec name still doesn't stand on its own with respect to security consulting. Not when commissions depend on it.

    The people at McAfee/NA were a bit brighter about it, and the value of the Foundstone name and reputation wasn't squandered as badly as it could have been when they got bought out. Sure Foundstone shed people just as @stake did, but there's a world of difference. They decided to follow perceived distinctiveness as a tool for selling consulting, and perceived ubiquity as a tool to sell products; the names differentiate them.

    Good luck to RSA. I'm sure they'll keep the name, expand their consulting services and probably give us a hell of a run for our money. (What with EMC already competing with Veritas/Symantec...) It's gonna be an interesting time.

    J

    *Best line this week: "If you're happy and you know it, stick with your current dosage."

    --
    I think not...(*poof*)
  17. new hire by thelaughingman · · Score: 1

    Hehe... I just got hired at EMC, I turned down an offer from RSA to work at EMC instead. Looks like I made the right choice. I should have bought some RSA stock though, its gone up like 10 bucks over the past 48 hours.

  18. In Other News by Dunarie · · Score: 1

    In other news, ABC buys XYZ for $1.23B.

    (1, never heard of these companies, 2, who cares?)

  19. EMC by pagej97 · · Score: 1

    Why does Ellingson Mineral Corporation need RSA? Are they afraid of their Gibson being hacked, or something?