Contact: Scott Denne Garrett Bekker
IBM inks its second acquisition in a month to grow its identity and access management (IAM) capabilities. In reaching for Lighthouse Security Group, Big Blue gains a managed services offering that already runs on its IAM suite, as well as hard-to-find talent in the IAM sector.
Though Lighthouse brings some unique intellectual property, the rationale is different than last month’s purchase of CrossIdeas, which added access governance and analytics software to IBM’s already broad IAM portfolio, which is mostly built around assets from Tivoli.
The relative importance of IAM within the security landscape expands as the notion of a security perimeter retreats. As we noted in an earlier report, IAM has already played a role in a number of smaller deals this year, including Ping Identity’s pickup of accells technologies and HID Global’s takeout of Lumidigm, as well as Gemalto’s agreement to spend $890m on SafeNet last week.
Whether customers are seeking decreased complexity of IAM deployments via a service like Lighthouse or advanced capabilities like CrossIdeas, IAM is a top priority for CISOs. According to a 2013 survey by TheInfoPro, a service of 451 Research, identity management was the most common security-related priority for IT shops over the next 12 months.
We’ll have a more detailed look at this transaction in tomorrow’s 451 Market Insight.
For more real-time information on tech M&A, follow us on Twitter @451TechMnA.