End of the line for standalone security vendors?

In an exclusive interview with SC, Carlo Minassian CEO and Founder of Sydney-based security vendor Earthwave claimed that in the next ten years the IT industry will no longer include niche standalone security vendors of any size.

“Big corporations are building security in the build, as a corner stone of their service,” said Minassian. “Consolidation in the market will continue and the security vendor as a whole is really going to disappear.”

Minassian highlighted that consolidation is not limited to small players in the market, as even the bigger security vendors will merge with IT companies. IBM acquiring ISS and Cisco acquiring Ironport shows the trend has already begun.

Agreeing, principal security architect at Earthwave, Dave Kaplan, said customers play a role in this trend. “Today customers expect security in the build and expect a service that is guaranteed to always be available and geared to protect against the likes of DDos attacks, he said. “Customers are smarter, they’re demanding security be built in.”

Most recently on Friday, IT consultancy group Axway, announced its intentions to acquire data management firm Tumbleweed for US$2.70 per share and in the past year McAfee acquired data-encryption vendor SafeBoot for US$350m and e-commerce security firm ScanAlert for US$75m.

Furthermore, PatchLink acquired SecureWave; SonicWall acquired Aventail for US$25m and Verizon acquired Cybertrust.

“The face of security is changing, and users will even get security enabled internet services,” Minassian said. “There’s that much movement that [in the future] people will look back at this time and see it was a time of massive consolidation.”