Is a merger or acquisition in Sourcefire's future?

It's been a busy year for Sourcefire Inc. founder and Chief Technology Officer Martin Roesch, creator of the Snort open source IDS tool.

In November 2006 he announced that Sourcefire had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $75 million in an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Seven months earlier, Check Point had dropped plans to acquire the company amid concerns that foreign ownership of Snort would threaten U.S. national security.

In the wake of the IPO, Roesch remains reluctant to go into greater detail on his company's future direction. But at the Gartner IT Security Summit in Washington DC, he explained how Sourcefire fits into Gartner's Security 3.0 theme. In the process, he suggested that the war chest Sourcefire has developed as a newly public company could be used in a future merger or acquisition.

Click here to hear his views