The IBM Security Systems Division
New IBM division aggregates products, resources, and talent to focus on security
By joltsik on Thu, 12/01/11 - 11:24am.I spent the last few days at IBM's "Software Analyst Connect 2011" event. Before attending this event, I was pretty clear on why IBM bought Q1 Labs and why it formed a new security division. After attending this event, I have some further thoughts about this move:
1. IBM Software GM Steve Mills kicked off the event by talking about "moving IBM's software portfolio to where the profits are." He then pointed to the fact that market value is shifting to solutions offering high scale, better availability, better security, and industry focus. To execute on this vision, IBM realizes that it needed a security nexus rather than a bit of security scattered throughout various product groups.
2. IBM outlined a number of smarter planet initiatives and success stories such as the NYC Crime Information Warehouse and building an operations center for the water department of Washington DC. IBM understands that these big opportunities must be designed and built with security baked-in from the start.
3. IBM consistently emphasized its focus on industry solutions. The company understands that there is a big opportunity to not only integrate disparate security tools into an enterprise architecture, but also build industry-specific security functionality on top.
4. IBM understands that security intelligence is rapidly becoming a big data problem. Between assets like i2, Netezza, and SPSS, IBM has lots of options for Q1 Labs integration with strong analytics.
Over the past few years, leading security technology vendors boasted about individual products, security research, and market share. IBM has all of these things in its new division but it also has a few other assets like software architecture expertise, lots of data analytics assets, and deep industry knowledge. This combination may be a security industry game-changer that Check Point, Cisco, HP, McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro should pay attention to.
- About Networking Nuggets and Security Snippets
- Jon Oltsik is a principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group responsible for the networking and security services at ESG. Prior to joining ESG, Jon was the founder and principal of Hype-Free Consulting. Mr. Oltsik previously served as VP of Marketing & Strategy at GiantLoop Network where he managed all marketing activities and defined the company’s strategic vision. Jon was also a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research where he covered a wide range of infrastructure and IT topics. In this role, he was frequently quoted in business journals, including the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and the New York Times, and was also the recipient of a prestigious "best research" award for his breakthrough report, "The Internet Computing Voyage."
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