Network
World - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) Tuesday announced a $2.7 billion deal to buy
Sourcefire (NASDAQ: FIRE), the 12-year-old intrusion detection and prevention security
vendor whose founder invented the open-source Snort IDS. Martin Roesch,
Sourcefire’s CTO, founded his company in 2001 to commercialize the open-source
Snort IDS he invented in 1998, and the company went public in 2007.
Cisco’s
acquisition of Sourcefire will help accelerate the realization of our vision
for a new model of security across the extended network,” Roesch said in a
statement. He noted “Cisco’s commitment to support our pace of innovation in
both commercial and the open source community.” Sourcefire has about 650
employees and reported $223.1 million in revenue during 2012.
Christopher
Young, senior vice president in the Cisco Security group, says Sourcefire
employees will join his unit. The two companies will have a conference call
this morning to further discuss details of the acquisition with the investment
community. Hilton Ramanski, Cisco’s vice president of corporate development,
said Sourcefire “aligns well with Cisco’s future vision for security and
supports the key pillars of our security strategy.”
There
is some overlap in security products, with both Cisco and Sourcefire competing
in what’s known as the next-generation firewall market. Cisco plans to hold
briefings later today to answer questions about product strategy and its
intentions related to open-source IDS Snort. The Cisco acquisition of
Sourcefire, in which Cisco will pay $76 per share in cash, is expected to close
the second half of 2013.
The
pending acquisition follows Cisco's purchase earlier this year of Cognitive
Security, maker of software that employs artificial intelligence to spot
threats. Ellen Messmer is senior editor at Network World, an IDG publication
and website, where she covers news and technology trends related to information
security.
