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Novell acquires e-Security

Novell beefs up its security position through purchase of real-time monitoring tool.

Candace Lombardi
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.
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Candace Lombardi
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Novell said Wednesday that it will acquire e-Security for $72 million.

The deal gives Novell ownership of e-Security's Sentinel 5 software, which offers real-time security monitoring and reporting capabilities for dealing with network events like hacking or unauthorized internal access, according to Reed Harrison, founder and chief technology officer of e-Security.

Novell already offers its customers security and identity-management systems, as well as reporting systems to monitor compliance. Company officials said the new addition should give Novell a more complete set of security and compliance infrastructure products to offer customers.

"We've focused on security and identity management as a core business. The addition of e-Security will make us a pioneer in delivering a single view of both security and compliance. Novell is the only vendor with integrated up-to-stack service on Windows, Linux and others," Jack Messman, chairman and CEO of Novell, said at a press conference centered on the announcement. Messman was referring to increased competition among software companies to offer full product sets.

While Messman and Harrison would not reveal financial data on the privately held e-Security, they did say the company is expected to bring $20 million in positive revenue over the next year. Novell plans to package e-Security products and services with current Novell systems.

Messman also said that Novell would not be releasing Sentinel 5 as open source at this time, but that such action is not out of the question in the future.

Messman was repeatedly asked during the press conference about Oracle's hint that it's looking into buying Novell.

"I will not comment on that. But Oracle is a friend of open source, and through their actions, their participation benefits open source. I think the Redhat/JBoss deal will cause us to have an even closer relationship with them," said Messman, referring to Linux distributor Red Hat's planned acquisition of JBoss, announced earlier this month.