The Roiling Security Sector: M&As, R&D and Moving Targets

This interesting ZDNet blog reports on a recent Symantec analysts’ call. Larry Dignan cuts though a lot of the corporate-speak from the security vendor’s COO to get to the main point: The company’s approach of dumping a lot of different security products into big packages may become less effective as a new generation of specialized new devices — smartphones, mostly — find themselves in crackers’ cross hairs. The bottom line is that this new reality may lead to more acquisitions. Dignan points out that Symantec recently purchased Altiris and Vontu.

There is nothing new about entrepreneurial firms in security (or elsewhere) being snapped up by bigger companies. The issue of comparative merits and the tensions between internal research and development and industry consolidation is part of this wide-ranging InfoWorld Q & A roundtable with the CEOs of McAfee and Symantec.