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HP To Acquire Fortify

Hewlett-Packard Co. today said it is acquiring security software vendor Fortify Software Inc. for an undisclosed amount.

Fortify's software security remediation suite, called Fortify 360, is widely used by large enterprises and government agencies. HP's planned acquisition of Fortify is not a major surprise to those who follow the companies given their close partnership.

"This has been in the cards for a long time," said Ovum analyst Tony Baer, in an e-mail. "HP and Fortify have been gradually dancing more closely together over the past year into what was about to become an exclusive relationship for HP, where Fortify was about to offer integrations specifically for HP Quality Center."

Baer noted the acquisition was inevitable after IBM acquired Ounce Labs last year. HP three years ago acquired SPI Dynamics, then regarded as a leading supplier of security assessment software. Fortify's suite offers security remediation at the development and QA testing phase, officials of both companies said during an interview.

"What we bring to the table is now that you find the issues with an application, how can you go about solving the problem, so time to security becomes important," said Barmak Meftah, Fortify chief products officer.

"The expertise they have on static analysis and understanding what happens in the code itself as software is being attacked is highly complimentary with our dynamic security testing technology," added Mark Sarbiewski,VP of Products in HP's Software & Solutions group.

It remains to be seen how long the founders, who include Fortify's chief scientist Brian Chess, will remain with HP. After the deal is closed, HP said it intends to initially run Fortify as a separate business unit but over time it will be integrated into HP's Software and Solutions business. Fortify CEO John Jack will run the business unit within HP, according to the company.

Sarbiewski said Fortify's software will be made available to HP's partners as well as integrated into its service offerings.

About the Author

Jeffrey Schwartz is editor of Redmond magazine and also covers cloud computing for Virtualization Review's Cloud Report. In addition, he writes the Channeling the Cloud column for Redmond Channel Partner. Follow him on Twitter @JeffreySchwartz.