SINGAPORE--After the impending acquisition of Cybertrust, Verizon Business has no immediate plans to acquire more companies, according to a senior company executive.
Last month, Verizon Business announced its plan to acquire Cybertrust, a privately held provider of global information security services, by the third quarter this year. Financial terms were not disclosed.
In an exclusive interview with ZDNet Asia, Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Verizon Business, said the company has no other acquisition plans for now, but did not rule out acquisitions in the future.
"An area we need to continue meeting customer needs is around professional services," Gofus said. "Customers are saying that they need more expert help in designing their IP telephony transformation and networks.
"Companies that bring those kinds of skills for use will be the kinds that we look at," she added.
Gofus noted that Verizon Business bought Cybertrust because of its capabilities in security services. More importantly, a large part of Cybertrust's revenues comes from Europe and Asia, and this is a good fit for Verizon Business, which also wants to extend its security services to non-U.S. markets, she said.
Darren Day, marketing director at Verizon Business Asia-Pacific, added that the acquisition will be especially important to the company's Asian operations, because "it brings not only security offerings but professional services around security and forensics".
According to a research note by Gartner, Verizon's announcement continues the trend of telcos buying security services providers to bolster their security portfolio. For example, MCI, which is now owned by Verizon, bought Netsec in January 2005, while the BT Group bought Counterpane in August 2006.
Although Gartner said that Verizon Business "has a difficult integration path to travel for customers to realize the potential benefits of the deal", it also noted the positives.
The analyst house said that the Cybertrust acquisition will provide Verizon Business with additional security operation centers in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region to augment those inherited from MCI. The deal will also enable Verizon to offer a more complete set of security services, including professional and managed services, identity management and public-key infrastructure.
But for Verizon to realize the economic benefits of the merger, Gartner noted, it will have to move to "a unified services delivery platform". This is because Verizon's current MSS (managed security services) business is delivered by the MCI Netsec infrastructure, while Cybertrust has its own MSS infrastructure.
Noting telcos' traditionally limited market appeal as security consultants beyond their bandwidth and network services customers, Gartner said: "Buyers of security services look for security expertise, and senior management looks for business issue acumen. Telcos are usually not the first option for either of these buyer segments, nor are telcos typically the first choice of employer for experienced security consultants."
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it also noted the positives.
Posted by elizabeth09090 on Sunday, June 10 2007 11:59 PM