[ISN] Symantec buys BindView Development for $209 million

[InfoSec News]

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/100305-symantec-bindview.html

By Peter Sayer
IDG News Service
10/03/05

Symantec Monday anounced it plans to buy security compliance software
vendor BindView Development for $209 million in cash.

The deal will close in the first quarter of 2006, subject to approval
from regulators and shareholders, Symantec said.

The two companies provide software that may help businesses and
government organizations comply with regulatory requirements such as
the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Federal Information Security Management
Act in the U.S., or the Basel II financial regulations in Europe.

Symantec's security systems use software agents to ensure compliance
with security policies, while BindView's approach is agentless,
Symantec said. The two approaches are complementary, it said. The
agent-based approach is more suited to complex, mixed IT environments,
while the agent-less model requires fewer staff to manage and is
suited to companies with large numbers of similar systems spread
across many sites, it said.

Last month, Symantec announced its intention to buy WholeSecurity , a
company in Austin, Texas, that develops software for detecting new
viruses based on their behavior, rather than their code.

In August, it bid for another security compliance software developer,
Sygate Technologies of Fremont, Calif.