Deal (sort of): Microsoft Continues to Fill Out Security Portfolio

Microsoft's acquisition strategy is becoming more clear by the day. They buy stuff that no one has heard of (for the most part), and either:

1. Give it away - Like the anti-spyware stuff
2. Bundle it with existing offerings - Like the Sybari stuff
3. Roll out services targeted towards consumer/SMB - Like OneCare/anti-virus and FrontBridge
   

Today Microsoft announced they acquired a web filtering product called DynaComm i:filter Web filtering product from FutureSoft, Inc., presumably to be bundled onto the ISA Server. Here is an interview with a Microsoft exec about the deal.

So Microsoft is slowly cobbling together a pretty comprehensive suite of security products. Their focus on the mid-market (given their lack of credibility in the enterprise) is exactly right and over time if you want software, you'll pretty much buy it from Microsoft.

We'll also see a number of appliance vendors take Microsoft's platform and sell it on a hardware platform. Kind of like folks are doing with network attached storage. We are seeing that a bit now, but ISA is not really where it needs to be to make that competitive now. But over time it will get there, and provide a viable alternative to folks like Barracuda and SonicWall in that market.

Large enterprise isn't interested in this kind of stuff from Microsoft, but mid-sized businesses will be. And I can only say it a million times, SMB is where the action is moving forward.