Symantec buys crypto firms PGP and GuardianEdge

By Tom Espiner
ZDNet UK
29 April, 2010

Symantec is buying encryption vendors PGP and GuardianEdge Technologies to boost its lineup, the company announced on Thursday.

The security company plans to integrate encryption products from PGP and GuardianEdge into its data loss prevention suite and endpoint protection products, said Symantec enterprise security group vice president Francis deSouza.

"The two acquisitions will give us a market-leading position in the $1.4bn per year encryption business," deSouza told ZDNet UK. "At Symantec, we're focused on making data protection easier to manage, and these acquisitions represent a big step forward."

The company will pay $300m (196m) in cash for PGP and $70m in cash for GuardianEdge, subject to approval from US and German antitrust bodies.
Symantec expects to gain the regulatory approval this quarter, said deSouza.

Many PGP and GuardianEdge products overlap. PGP's product portfolio includes disk encryption, email protection, file and server encryption, and authentication. GuardianEdge offers hard disk encryption and authentication, as well as storage encryption and smartphone protection.
Symantec already sells endpoint encryption and hosted email encryption.