John PescatoreNetwork World reported this week that switch/NAC vendor Consentry was closing its doors. My recent post on NAC triggered some debate about NAC – does Consentry’s exit mean that NAC is a failure? That depends on whether you are an investor or a security manager.
In our market note on NAC in early 2008, Gartner said:
· NAC is currently a hot market, but it is expected to change in the medium term.
· Starting in 2009, infrastructure-based NAC offerings will mature, affecting the market landscape as a result of changes in end users’ technology adoption.
· Currently, the NAC market comprises a variety of players offering a collection of add-on, mostly appliance-based, solutions, but infrastructure and endpoint software-based vendors are increasingly integrating NAC functionality as part of their broader product platforms.
What we’ve been saying is that network infrastructure vendors and endpoint security software vendors will take the oxygen out of the market by including NAC to sell their main products. This is what has been happening – NAC use goes up but revenue doesn’t grow as fast because NAC is a function that is included in network gear, operating systems and endpoint protection platforms. There are other network infrastructure vendors that are likely to acquire NAC vendors over the next year or so to compete – again, more NAC seats, less NAC specific revenue.
There are other issues at work, too. Consentry and Nevis were NAC vendors that were trying to be much more than NAC and had huge investments in ASICs. They were pushing identity-based networking well ahead of demand, and the ASICs made getting acquired much more difficult. At the same time they were having problems selling their product to enterprises or selling the company, NAC sales overall still went up 50% in 2008 and there were several NAC acquisitions where the technology gets integrated into other products.
The bottom line is there is a big difference between what Main Street needs and what Wall Street wants.
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Another NAC Vendor Goes Under: The Difference Between What … | The Liquid Engine September 3, 2009 at 9:47 am
[...] posted here: Another NAC Vendor Goes Under: The Difference Between What … Tags: anthony-bradley, benoit-lheureux, bruce-robertson, donald-feinberg, french-caldwell, [...]
2 Happy Labor Day, Information Security Professionals September 4, 2009 at 12:26 pm
[...] very smart security people who are currently between gigs. On the supply side, some vendors (see John Pescatore’s NAC post) are feeling the pinch of security people rationalizing their project portfolios, um, [...]
3 Asheem Chandna September 5, 2009 at 12:09 am
Only successful NAC exit to the best of my knowledge was Perfigo – acquired by Cisco several years ago and became the basis for Cisco’s NAC product line
4 John Pescatore September 8, 2009 at 9:12 am
That’s pretty common in the security market – the first acquisition is the only true “successful” exit. Walter Pritchard had the best line – it is like the lottery. The first winner makes out great. After that, all the other acquisitions have “shared tickets and split the same amount of money across all acquisitions.
It has gotten a bit tougher as CA has slowed down on acquisitions – usually it is Cisco, Symantec or McAfee selecting the first winner.
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