You know when an industry has matured; that's when companies begin purchasing one another at a rapid clip. This happened back in the 1980s when fledgling security supercompanies Symantec and McAfee went on a purchasing spree; and, it's happening again, only the players are slightly different. Within the last two years, Symantec purchased six security-related companies, Computer Associates bought six, Microsoft four, and McAfee and Trend Micro picked up two each. Some of the swallowed-up company names should be familiar: Groove, Qurb, PestPatrol, PowerQuest, and Tiny Personal Firewall. But here's the amazing thing: 11 of the 20 purchases occurred within 2005 alone. What does all this mean to you and me? Well, for one thing, less choice when it comes to security software.

	Eleven of the 20 purchases occurred in 2005 alone. What does all this mean to you and me? Well, for one thing, less choice.

Trends
There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason behind the recent security-related purchases. Symantec appears to be building out its security-auditing portfolio by adding the likes of BindView, @Stake, and Brightmail to its previous ownership of the Web publication SecurityFocus (which includes the infamous BugTraq mailing list). At the same time, Symantec also purchased PowerQuest and Veritas, which are meat-and-potatoes computer utility companies. Computer Associates appears to be going after the consumer market, adding first-rate products PestPatrol Anti-Spyware, Tiny Personal Firewall, and Qurb antispam to its eTrust family of products, while covering its enterprise bases with Concord Communications. With its recent purchases of Sybari, GeCAD antivirus, and Giant Software AntiSpyware, Microsoft appears to be gearing up for its launch next year of Client Protection (enterprise) and OneCare (desktop), two new subscription-based computer-security services. McAfee and Trend Micro, meanwhile, seem to be gambling on the nascent consumer wireless market.

Here's a chart of who's who in the security space today.

And this just in...
While I was writing this column, Check Point announced that it had completed the purchase of Sourcefire, the commercial end of the Snort community. Check Point bought ZoneLabs, makers of ZoneAlarm, in 2003.

Potential downsides
To some degree, I'd have to say getting bought out by a larger company is usually bad. Back in 2003, McAfee bought Deersoft SpamAssassin (our Editors' Choice that year), then it buried the SpamAssasin product within its horrendous McAfee SpamKiller product (definitely not our Editors' Choice). Now that the PowerQuest engineers have been assimilated into the Symantec corporate culture, it'll be interesting to see whether Norton Ghost 10 delivers a knockout blow to last year's Editors' Choice, Acronis True Image 9, in this year's comparison.

	I think diversity is good. I think partnering with best-of-breed apps is a win-win for companies and consumers alike.

Rather than purchasing them, I think partnering with best-of-breed apps is a win-win for companies and consumers alike. For example, ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite, our current Editors' Choice, partnered with MailFronter, our Editors' Choice for antispam, and with Spybot, our Editors' Choice for antispyware. That's one reason I like ZoneAlarm Internet Security better than Norton Internet Security or McAfee Internet Security (my other reason is that, even though ZoneAlarm only partnered with--as opposed to buying--these other companies, the apps are more fully integrated than the apps within the Norton or McAfee suites).

Like Google
Unless it's a company like Google, which encourages its employees to spend 20 percent of their time dreaming new products, I don't see a lot of innovation once a small company has been gobbled up by a bigger fish. I see talented people let go and the ability to try new things quashed by the corporate bottom line. On the other hand, perhaps the recent security purchases will simply clear the decks and make room for new companies to bubble to the surface. Perhaps. The cynic in me, however, says otherwise.

Do you think it's good or bad that five companies are more or less buying up all the security-related companies right now? Talk back to me.

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