IBM to Acquire Q1 Labs and Setup New Security Division

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), the the world’s second most valuable company is looking forward to expand its operations to keep up with the heightening competition offered by other players like Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) and EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC) in the rapidly growing security market.

The company announced its definitive plans to acquire Q1 Labs Inc., a privately owned security firm widely known for its flagship product QRadar. Q1 Labs, based in Waltham, Massachusetts is a leading SIEM vendor which has been effectively competing against Hewlett Packard’s ArcSight and EMC Corp.’s RSA security division will provide an edge to IBM against the competition once the acquisition is complete.

Apart from the Q1 Labs deal, the company also announced the establishment of a new IBM Security Systems division which integrates IBM’s portfolio with Q1 Labs’ analytical security software solutions. The company said that the new division will be headed by the current Chief Executive Officer of Q1 Labs, Brendan Hannigan.

The Senior Vice President of IBM Middleware Software, Robert LeBlanc while talking about the new division said that the acquisition of Q1 Labs, the leaders in software with advanced analytics and conflation capabilities will add a whole new level to the security b y allowing effective prediction and prevention of threats. By combining the capabilities of both the companies IBM will have an end to end view of the security, he added.

IBM is already well established in security for some time now and it has an efficient security research and development organizations with a number of security operations center, research centers, labs for software security development and institutes for advanced security. The company already owns more than 3000 security patents and has made significant breakthroughs in cryptography. The new IBM Security Systems Division will merge all the existing research and development facilities for security related components under a single roof and in turn standing out in the crowd.

IBM Corp. based in Armonk, New York has not yet announced the financial terms of the deal . The acquisition will allow the creation of a single platform for the software, hardware and other service offerings for the benefit of customers as well as the company. The CEO of Q1 Labs, Brendan Hannigan said that the current customers are looking for integrated security intelligence services which are broader than SIEM and the company will be available to pursue the vision to come up with new products which will be made easier by IBMs technologies.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.