Security Becomes Fundamental - Dell Buys SecureWorks

Dell announced today its intent to continue broadening its “as a service” strategy by expanding into the security space through the acquisition of SecureWorks. The vendor, which has lead a push toward IT-as-a-service from the desktop to the datacenter, its just another enterprise level supplier making a bet on security as a foundational part of the business in 2011.

As we’ve seen with acquisitions such as the Intel buy of McAfee, large systems vendors are increasingly looking at security not as a nice, add-on product but as a cornerstone of enterprise solutions. Many will argue that this attitude is long overdue and, in fact, antiquated, however, the market speaks for itself and only now are we seeing large IT concerns looking to fold security into the portfolios of IT products that they offer. Only now are we seeing momentum pick up in terms of security becoming fundamental.

This attitude on the part of large vendors likely echoes what they’re hearing from the highest-ranking budget holders in their key accounts and at customer council meetings. The CISO and the CIO want security to be built into everything they do. They want to be proactive and they want to actively improve how the company does business, not simply respond to attacks. It’s a great posture to have, we call it Security 2.0, but we estimate that less than half of the companies we interact with on a day-to-day basis are there yet. Buys like this, however, may make the transition a lot easier on the c-level IT and security folks. If they’re buying Dell or Intel today, they may be making those same buys with enhanced security features tomorrow.

Does this acquisition change the landscape of who Dell is and what they sell? No. it’s a simple product line extension similar to their announcement of acquiring Compellent to bolster their storage offerings or their intent to buy InSite to target their hardware for use in medical image storage. The interesting part of this story? That a company focused on offering IT as a service, a model where you always want to start with the fundamentals, is focused on security-as-a-service. Dell believes security is fundamental.