HP plans to acquire Web application security vendor SPI
Dynamics and integrate the vendor's software as a unit in HP's
Technology Solutions Group.
 | | | | | The number of vulnerabilities to
business-critical applications has gone up exponentially with the
rise of web-based applications.
Jonathan Rende,
vice president of software
productsHP |
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HP said the acquisition would help bolster security in its
business systems, such as e-commerce Web sites or financial and
supply chain applications. Financial terms of the transaction were
not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in the third
quarter.
SPI Dynamics has 140 employees and serves more than 1,000
customers in the federal government, financial services and
healthcare industries, including HP.
"The combination of HP and SPI Dynamics will allow us to scale
and provide our customers with the industry's most comprehensive
application quality, performance and
security assessment solutions," Brian Cohen, chief executive
officer, SPI Dynamics said in a statement. "For more than five
years we have partnered with HP, so I am very pleased to be joining
forces to better serve our customers and partners."
HP has been touting its security in recent months, announcing a
new
HP appliance last month that logs data for
audits and investigations.
Chris Whitener, HP's new storage and server
security chief recently told SearchSecurity that the company
is making security improvements as it pushes further into the
small and midsize business market.
In March, SPI Dynamics fully integrated its technology with HP's
Quality Center platform, which it acquired from Mercury Interactive
in 2006. SPI Dynamics has had a lengthy history with Mercury,
integrating some of its technologies into Mercury's application
security platform. The Mercury acquisition increased the size of
the HP Software business to more than $2 billion in annual
revenue.
SPI Dynamics sells an Assessment Management Platform to conduct
automated Web site
security assessments. The platform includes a dashboard to view
an organisation's policy compliance and risk posture.
The SPI Dynamics WebInspect tool is used by security pros to
identify
vulnerabilities within the Web application layer. QAInspect is
aimed at QA pros to automate Web application security testing and
DevInspect, aimed at developers is compatible with Microsoft Visual
Studio .NET to fix source code and identify Web site
vulnerabilities.
SPI Dynamics software is also used to validate application
security and quality after deployment.
"The number of vulnerabilities to business-critical applications
has gone up exponentially with the rise of web-based applications,"
said Jonathan Rende, vice president of products, quality management
software at HP.