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EMC finishes RSA buy, also picks up Network Intelligence

EMC completed the acquisition of one security company while starting the acquisition of another on Monday.

The storage giant announced it wrapped up the purchase of RSA Security, a $2.1 billion deal that was announced in June. In addition, the company made known that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Massachusetts-based Network Intelligence, a deal which will form the foundation of a new information security division of EMC.

Analysts said that EMC's forays into the information security marketplace comes from a heads-up assessment of the shifting priorities in IT security.

"EMC sees the situation where people spend a lot of money on securing networks and securing desktops, but they're still getting breached and still having their data compromised," said Jon Oltsik of Enterprise Strategy Group. "So EMC's perspective has been (that) security needs to move closer to the data and away from the infrastructure."

EMC brass mirrored that perspective on Monday with statements about their acquisitions.

"The battlefront in security has quickly shifted from securing the network perimeter to protecting and securing the information itself — wherever that information lives and wherever it moves," said Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC. "The additions of RSA and Network Intelligence to EMC enables us to execute on our information-centric security strategy."

Now that deal with RSA is complete, EMC will now have to take the long road to integrate RSA technology with its own. Oltsik said he believes that it will take time to do this strategically, but there will be immediate advantages to the marriage.

"From a technology perspective, I think they'll kind of ease into integration," he said. "They'll use RSA technology to improve secure lifecycle technology over time. In the meantime, I think there will be a fit with RSA and Documentum, RSA and VMWare, RSA as a back-end, role-based access control platform for storage. So there are tactical solutions and then there are strategic innovations."

Click here to email Ericka Chickowski.

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