RSA, the security division of EMC, announced it's intent to acquire Tablus, a privately held company in the more narrowly defined (but no less important) Data Leak Prevention (DLP) space. Once completed, Tablus' solutions will be integrated into EMC's Infoscape intelligent information management offerings. (see press release for further details, eWeek article , and News.com coverage by Dawn Kawamoto)
Busy times for EMC in recent years, as it knocks down pin after pin in the quest to own a significant portion of the "best of breed" solutions in the overall Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) picture. The Tablus acquisition adds an ability to know exactly where content is and what is being done with it, particularly for what is called "data in motion" (over the network) and "data in use" (typically on a desktop).
No doubt there is massive Enterprise Content Management (ECM) industry consolidation going on these days, with IBM, Oracle, OpenText and Autonomy (see aiimALERT on Autonomy acquisition of ZANTAZ) all in the game. While the financial implications to EMC and all its subsidiaries are interesting to consider, the real interest here is in the arsenal of solutions and the entire ecosystem that EMC is putting together to own DIRECTLY.
Conceptually, EMC's acquired solutions have one thing in common - virtualized policy-based information (structured or unstructured, data or "information") management - regardless of the type or format of content, regardless of what type of storage medium is being used, regardless of what system it lives in. It's not enough just to virtualize your storage, nor to have policy-based capabilities, yet have to implement that policy in multiple siloed systems. The closer to full integration, the more likely you are truly to have "managed" your information for both proactive and reactive purposes.
In short, with ILM, information is managed, cradle to grave (creation to destruction), and includes not just an "IT View" of information (typically concerned with operational matters), which EMC provides via it's core storage business as well as through the Legato and Dantz acquisitions, but also a "Business View" - (i.e. compliance and regulatory matters, "knowledge worker" and managerial productivity concerns, findability of content, and information-centric processes and productivity), which EMC provides via Documentum, eRoom, AskOnce, TrueArc, Legato and Authentica acquisition).
Add a portal and/or Web Content Management solution such as Vignette (a next acquisition?), re-surface Enterprise Search (where has AskOnce disappeared to in the EMC stack?), address the mobile/untethered market (on both security and information access overall), and support all operating systems from Windows, Unix, OS X and Linux, and EMC will essentially own the entire solution, tied together in Business Process Management via the ProActivity acquisition (in 2006).
At one time it would've seemed absurd that EMC could come remotely close to this unified vision, but it seems a real possibility at this time, and only getting more real as the days roll on. What had started out looking like an oddball acquisition strategy from it's storage roots has over time looked to be brilliant maneuvering towards dominance and complete ILM solution ownership by EMC.
This most recent acquisition, Tablus falls within the realm of content security. in this regard. the path taken by EMC mirrors the content security definition and strategy that we have been touting in AIIM Market Intelligence research, and in our former work at Delphi Group. (This is the topic of our upcoming AIIM Market IQ, scheduled for release in early October.)
Put succinctly, content security is a full life-cycle policy-based approach to securing content at its source - and in dynamic use or context. This approach to security minimizes risk, while simultaneously maximizing secure collaboration and knowledge exchange. The promise of content security (as defined) comes as the result of business strategy and (granted) a potentially complex technology strategy. Between the rise of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and platform independent standards, as well as "all in one" solutions such as EMC is pursuing, the coarse building blocks for full information management is essentially a clear possibility, and the rest of the story is in the hairy work of true "off the shelf" integration between all of the components that EMC has acquired, and the ongoing system integration premiums that early adopters in the "whole solution" are going to experience.
It is interesting to note that while EMC is not the only solution provider building an ILM platform, they are ahead in the strategic acquisition race, and this is significantly different than the approach that companies such as Microsoft and Adobe are taking. Where MS and Adobe are creating a loose-knit partner ecosystem which puts all of the risk (and fun) in rounding out specific capabilities in a market space out in the hands of the startups looking to push the boundaries and innovate at the edges of a particular set of business/technology issues, EMC seeks to own the entire "information stack" itself, in theory offering better integration and faster time to deploy. More expensive in the short-term for EMC, and with higher risk for EMC, but this plan seems to be bearing significant fruit thus far.
This is a fascinating area of the broad information management business - the idea that security is FINALLY being addressed not just at the device or network level, but to information itself, in a dynamic real-time manner, is a key issue that gets to the heart of how organizations should handle their information assets.
Stay tuned as we dive further into this area of the market in our forthcoming Market IQ (Intelligence Quarterly) on Content Security, being released early Q4 of 2007. It's high time that the world of traditional information security and business management of information tied together...
As a big EMC customer, I have oft wondered whether they would buy a portal company to complement Documentum / eRoom, and my personal favourite would have been Vignette - but they seem happy to partner with Vignette, BEA and now even MS (MOSS 2007), but why stop there - why not buy Sun Microsystems and provide the servers and the OS as well !
Posted by: Jed | August 15, 2007 at 11:46 AM