SonicWALL Inc. has entered into an agreement to purchase Aventail Corp., a Seattle-based provider of SSL VPN remote access products.
The acquisition, made for roughly $25 million in cash, is expected to close in about 25 days. The move helps both companies firmly establish themselves as leaders in the SSL (secure sockets layer) VPN (virtual private network) remote access market, said Patrick Sweeney, vice president of secure networking business unit at SonicWALL, in an interview with eWEEK.
“We at SonicWALL have a very strong product line not just in SMB but in mid-enterprise…what Aventail brings to us is really knowledge base and core competencies in individuals, people and processes that are very, very strong at working with the higher caliber end customer,” Sweeney said.
Once the acquisition becomes a reality, the newly constituted company will continue to support and invest in the companies existing products.
“Both product lines are destined to stay, and will be invested in and brought forward on an ongoing basis,” Sweeney said. “Eventually, yes, youll see various products that will come together and be the result directly of cross-pollenization of technologies.”
The acquisition follows other consolidations in the VPN market. Last year, Microsoft bought Whale Associates, a company that competes in the SSL VPN space with SonicWALL, Cisco Systems and others. Founded in 1996, Aventail is among the oldest SSL VPN vendors.
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