Monday, 4 August 2008

McAfee, to Acquire Reconnex, Redefine Data Protection Market

McAfee said Friday that it has decided to purchase privately owned data loss prevention (DLP) company Reconnex for 46 million in cash.

Reconnex’s technology helps an organization protect all the information assets on its network without requiring upfront knowledge of what needs to be protected, regardless of how that information is stored, secured or communicated.

Through the pending acquisition of Reconnex, McAfee expects to further enhance its leadership position in proactive security and risk management solutions.

“Data protection is the number one concern of chief information security officer’s, but today’s DLP solutions take too long to deploy and obtain results,” said Dave DeWalt, chief executive officer and president of McAfee.

“With the pending acquisition of Reconnex, McAfee expects to redefine the entire data protection market by bringing together a leader in the hottest segment with our comprehensive portfolio of data protection technologies.”

“The growing number of high-profile incidents in which customer records, confidential information and intellectual property were leaked (or lost/stolen) has created an explosive demand for solutions that protect against the deliberate or inadvertent release of sensitive information,” said Brian Burke, security research analyst at IDC.

“This acquisition creates a great opportunity for McAfee to fulfill a critical need in this space. IDC forecasts worldwide revenue for the information protection and control (IPC) market to grow from 765 million in 2006 to 3.2 billion in 2011, representing a 33% compound annual growth rate. Reconnex's gateway-based technology perfectly compliments McAfee's existing host based data protection solution and will position McAfee securely in this space.”

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008.

McAfee anticipates that following the closing, Reconnex’s technologies will be incorporated under McAfee’s Data Protection product business unit, headed by Gerhard Watzinger.