Proofpoint buys Fortiva, expands into email archiving

Posted by on June 27, 2008

Proofpoint and Fortiva finally tied the knot this week. The acquisition marks a significant milestone for Proofpoint, addressing a major hole in its offering. What might be next for the growing on-demand security provider?

Fire-eating Barracuda

Posted by on June 27, 2008

While not a done deal, Barracuda Networks’ new bid of $8.25 for each share of Sourcefire seems to be closer to the level the market was valuing the Snort shop. Nearly a month ago, the aptly named Barracuda swarmed Sourcefire with an unsolicited bid of $7.50 per share, which worked out to an equity value [...]

National (in)security

Posted by on June 27, 2008

With Sourcefire likely to get gobbled up shortly by a hungry Barracuda Networks, we couldn’t help but flashback to the earlier attempt by Check Point Software Technologies to acquire the Snort vendor. (For those of you keeping score at home: Yes, Check Point’s offer more than two years ago valued Sourcefire higher than Barracuda’s current [...]

Less than zero?

Posted by on June 24, 2008

The company once known as MathSoft has been cancelled out by the following equation: 1 – 0.5 – 0.5 = 0. The firm made its first subtraction in early 2001, with the divestiture of its core technical calculations software business. That was followed up last week with the sale of the remaining chunk of the [...]

VeriSign’s yo-yo diet

Posted by on June 24, 2008

We’ve noted several times in the past that former binge eater VeriSign has set itself on a fairly severe corporate diet. (Last November, we outlined VeriSign’s divestiture plan that could trim up to one-third of the company’s revenue.) Having already sold off three businesses so far in 2008, VeriSign is nearing a fourth divestiture, we [...]

Macrovision makes small buy for big ambitions

Posted by on June 23, 2008

In spite of a 40% drop in its stock since plunking down $2.8bn for Gemstar-TV Guide in December 2007, Macrovision continued its push into online TV distribution markets with the asset purchase of ThoughtWorthy Media last Friday. Without giving too many details on its plans, the digital content protection company said the deal will provide [...]

SanDisk amps up its music player offerings

Posted by on June 23, 2008

SanDisk’s acquisition of MusicGremlin last week signals a willingness of the rare acquirer to bulk up its digital music player business through acquisitions. Who might the memory maker buy next?

Lessons from a big Yahoo

Posted by on June 19, 2008

Talk about being thrown straight into the shark tank (or more accurately a barracuda tank): John Burris has agreed to step from the board to the CEO spot at Sourcefire. The appointment comes just two weeks after Barracuda Networks made an unsolicited offer for the network security vendor. We noted that the low-ball bid of [...]

A chippy deal

Posted by on June 17, 2008

After more than two months of discussions, Cadence Design Systems put a bear hug on Mentor Graphics on Tuesday, June 17, offering roughly $1.6bn in cash for the smaller chip-design vendor. Under terms of the unsolicited offer, Cadence would pay $16 for each of the roughly 91 million Cadence shares. Cadence said it would cover [...]

Emerald Isle M&A

Posted by on June 16, 2008

Given that today is Bloomsday, we’ve given ourselves literary license to take a look at deal flow between the US and Ireland. (Don’t worry, if you’re like us and have never actually managed to get through James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ – despite taking more than a few cracks at the tome – this Insight will still [...]

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