Security Industry Consolidation Begins

Consolidation started to take place in a big way in the security market in 2016, bringing to bear predictions that some of the market’s thousands of startups would be acquired. 2016 so far has yielded some blockbuster deals, most notably the $4.65 billion acquisition of Blue Coat Systems by Symantec and its follow-up acquisition of LifeLock for $2.3 billion. Other acquisitions during the year so far included Carbon Black acquiring Confer, Avast Software acquiring AVG, private equity acquiring Dell Software, private equity acquiring Ping Identity, private equity acquiring Intel Security, and Optiv Security making three acquisitions, as well as getting acquired itself. Rumors have already started flying as to who could be next in 2017, in what is likely to be another interesting year for security acquisitions.