Novell bought the 80-person Vienna, Virginia-based firm for $72 million, and closed the deal immediately. With the deal, e-Security becomes part of Novell’s system security and identity management product unit, and should retain most or all of its current staff at its current location.
Clearly, compliance drove the acquisition. Customers have been asking for a comprehensive security and compliance solution, said Richard Whitehead, director of product marketing for Novell’s system security and identity management unit.
e-Security’s product, Sentinel 5, is built using a publish/subscribe (pubsub) message bus that includes an event correlation engine, automated incident response, a repository of compliance rules, and a control center for developing rules and monitoring activity.
The product comes with a core set of data collectors plus starter templates for event correlation, incident tracking and resolution, and trend reporting for compliance assessments. Additionally, control packs are available based on IT governance frameworks such as COBIT and COSO. You can handle compliance incidents within the system or, through web services APIs, hand them off to service desk packages like HP Service Desk or BMC Remedy.
e-Security, which has been in business for seven years, has roughly 170 customers, a handful of which may be Novell accounts. Despite the lack of joint customers, Whitehead says that e-Security’s architecture should make it a good fit with Novell’s existing products, like ZENworks and Novell Identity Manager. The message bus lets us quickly tie in those technologies, Whitehead said.
With the deal now closed, Novell plans to start selling Sentinel 5, e-Security’s product, beginning in May, and has an aggressive integration plan targeted for completion by summer. Novell estimates a positive revenue impact from the acquisition of roughly $20 million in the next year.
