It had been a while since a major storage and security convergence M&A transaction hadn´t occurred (in December 2004, Symantec and Veritas had merged).

What happened last week is, when it comes to industry trends forecasting, very telling: EMC, the world-leader in storage solutions, has acquired RSA Security, the successful access and identity management software company. RSA hit the headlines recently when it partnered with antivirus software company Panda to dismantle the Clickbot.A application e-mafia (a virus monitored by a network of e-crooks that tracked “Pay-per-Click” pages and clicked on it automatically).

Although I believe the $2.1bn valuation grants RSA shareholders with a pretty nice premium, the move clearly makes sense, strategically speaking: companies are fed up having to deal with tons of vendors when implementing a new information security solution (hardware vendors, security auditors, storage architects, software engineers, deployment consultants, training consultants, etc.). Thanks to the EMC – RSA integration, clients will be dealing with this one-stop integrator that will provide the storage solution and the software that goes with it. Simple, isn´t it? It´s exactly as if you purchased a new PC (or a door) and had to go and buy the operating system (the key…) on the side: why bother?

I actually came to know about this deal thanks to Philippe Becher, the founder and managing director of Vadis Partners. Vadis Partners is an international capital and business development consultancy: Philippe´s teams help their clients (Israeli high-tech start-ups in security, storage and telcos) expand their business base through frequent international expansion missions in Europe and the United States (fundraising, new clients hunt abroad, strategy consulting, etc.). When I met Philippe in Tel Aviv, I was impressed by his drive and talent to convince. Prior to founding Vadis Partners, Philippe had worked for the World Bank in Russia, for a major French banking institution, and finally for the Fantine group – at the time the major Israeli Private Equity group. When Fantine went bust, Philippe founded Vadis Partners, which is now a major player in the security – storage – telcos consulting business.

From what I understood from my last talk with Philippe, Vadis Partners´ client portfolio has doubled in size and volume in the past year(Israel is a nest of start-ups with outstanding technological capabilities and they´re all willing to expand internationally). Philippe has eventually achieved what he had set out to do: allow companies with fantastic customer and technological assets like RSA Security, a long-term client of Vadis Partners, to be purchased by a giant like EMC. And this is only a beginning…

Congrats Philippe: you make Israeli technological breakthroughs available to the world!

No doubt you´ll get to read more about Vadis Partners and its clients technologies in the future on this very blog.

Adendum Septembre 1st 2006 (in French unfortunately): an interesting article revealing the underlying strategy of EMC when deciding to go on in the acquisition of RSA, and some interesting hints on how and why CISCO and Alcatel more and more integrate security devices in their products: http://solutions.journaldunet.com/0607/060705-emc-rsa/1.shtml 

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Let me start with a little story, and a basic question:

Say you purchased gas for your car, and realized that this specific oil company sells a specific gas that works only with one specific car. Would you be pissed off?

Sure you would. Well, that´s exactly the pattern Apple iPod´s business model is implementing. When you download music on Apple Music Store onto your iTunes software, the only electronic music player that enables you to listen to the music you´ve purchased is your iPod. Does it sound familiar?

iPod´s lack of interoperability confirms the underlying strategic move Apple´s CEO Steve Jobs has made. Apple is exiting step-by-step the software industry in which Microsoft Windows KO-ed Mac OS a long time ago – to do what it does best (design and marketing), & become a consumer hardware devices pure-player, reproducing Microsoft´s monopolistic economics.

The French government, for once, understood what was going on in the entertainment industry. A motion potentially forcing Apple to either open its rather unfair FairPlay technology or exit the historical French market (France is an all-times first-mover into Apple´s new releases and hosts the biggest Apple conference outside the US – named Apple Expo) was recently accepted by both the Parliament and the Senate. Unfortunately, French lawmakers ruled out the possibility to constrain Apple´s upcoming dominant competitive position. There is however still room for fining Apple, and the story made such a media hype that other governments might follow France´s clever move. Let´s hope the world realizes where culture is heading to before it´s too late.

To recapitulate, all what consumers want is to be able to purchase the music they like from the downloading website they want, and play it on the device they had previously bought.

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