Security appliance vendor Blue Coat Systems Inc. on Wednesday announced its acquisition of Ositis Software Inc., a small maker of anti-virus appliances. Blue Coat will pay $1 million in cash and 363,125 in stock for the company.
The acquisition will enable Blue Coat to add its own anti-virus protection to its line of ProxySG boxes. Currently, the company has partnerships with both Symantec Corp. and Trend Micro Inc. for Web-based anti-virus scanning. Ositis solution does both SMTP and HTTP scanning.
Blue Coats appliances run on the companys proprietary operating system, which has made it somewhat difficult to port outside applications to the boxes, said Brian NeSmith, CEO of Blue Coat, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Bringing in the Ositis solution will make that process easier, he added.
Ositis, based in Pleasanton, Calif., sells both software and hardware solutions, but its main business is the eShield security appliance. The eShield box includes anti-virus, anti-spam and content filtering. NeSmith said he anticipates keeping the eShield as a separate appliance for now, but added that its functionality may be integrated with the ProxySG appliances in the future.
“It fits very tightly into our product line,” NeSmith said. “Its going to be delivered as a separate hardware platform, but [ProxySG and eShield] will operate as a single physical device. Theres definite possibilities for integration as an inboard solution later.”
About 25 Ositis employees will join Blue Coat as part of the acquisition. NeSmith said he anticipates the purchase will add about $1 million in revenue per quarter for Blue Coat.
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