Symantec Sets Sights on IMlogic

Symantec today began 2006 pretty much how it left 2005,
offering to acquire a smaller company to bolster its enterprise software
portfolio.

The new target is IMlogic, Inc., the leader in instant messaging (IM)
security software for businesses, which security specialist Symantec hopes
to buy for an undisclosed sum to boost real-time communications protection
for its customers.

Privately-held IMlogic’s products help enterprises ensure control and secure
IM networks at a time when compliance with regulatory and corporate
governance policies is a must.

IMlogic’s IM Manager manages, secures and archives all IM traffic with
certified support for public and enterprise IM networks, including AOL, MSN,
Yahoo!, Jabber and others. The IMlogic Real-Time Threat Protection System
(RTTPS) is designed to prevent IM virus, worm, and malware outbreaks before they occur.

IM is already a fixture among consumers, who are sending more than 12
billion messages daily — more than even e-mail messages, according to IDC
figures.

But IM technology is increasingly becoming more popular among business users for real-time communications. IMLogic is also valuable because the market is evolving beyond basic
messaging and file sharing. IM networks are increasingly being used in voice
over IP (VoIP) services for free calling between clients.

But rampant adoption of communications technologies such as IM, e-mail and
VoIP can also lead to breeding grounds for malicious threats, hack attacks
and viruses, Symantec said in a statement. This is why Symantec believes
IMLogic is a lucrative business to bolster its security software offerings.

“With the best-of-breed instant messaging management and compliance software
from IMlogic, Symantec will be the first and only vendor to offer a complete
security and archiving solution to help customers manage all their messaging
requirements,” said Enrique Salem, senior vice president of Security
Products and Solutions, Symantec.

The deal, expected to close soon, also makes sense because Symantec and
IMlogic have already partnered on many fronts.

Symantec’s Enterprise Vault, the e-mail and content archiving offering from
Symantec, has been integrated with IMlogic’s IM Manager since 2002 to
address regulatory compliance for many of the world’s enterprises.

Moreover, Symantec Security Response has had a longstanding relationship
with the IMlogic Threat Center, and research analysts from both companies
have collaborated to address the exponential growth of IM and P2P threats on
the Web.

Should the deal succeed, IMlogic’s threat detection and remediation for IM
will be integrated into Symantec’s early warning and response system and
will augment the existing capabilities of Symantec Security Response.

The deal is par for the course for Symantec as it aims to improve its
position as the largest security software maker in the world by acquiring a
handful of security-oriented companies to fill out corporate gaps.

In 2005, these buys included BindView
, WholeSecurity and Sygate
Technologies.