Security supplier Blue Coat is to buy privately-held end-point security specialist Permeo Technologies in a $60.8m cash-and-stock deal ($13.4m cash and $47.4m in Blue Coat stock). The acquisition, announced Tuesday, is designed to supplement Blue Coat's existing line of ProxySG proxy security appliances with technology designed to ensure devices connecting to a corporate network are not already infected with computer viruses and are running with up-to-date security patches. The deal is expected to close within 60 days.

End-point security has become a major focus for security development in recent months, with vendors including Check Point, Juniper and Cisco making acquisitions in the segment. Blue Coat's purchase of Permeo allows it to compete more effectively with its larger competitors in one of the hottest segments of the information security industry. ®

Related stories

• NetApp flogs NetCache to Blue Coat (23 June 2006)
• Managing network bandwidth (27 March 2006)
• Sunbelt rescues Kerio Firewall from oblivion (2 December 2005)
• In brief Juniper gets Funky (14 November 2005)
• Check Point beefs up spyware defences (8 July 2005)
• Unipalm bundles Symantec and Blue Coat (10 April 2005)
• Check Point strengthens perimeter with Zone Labs (17 December 2003)
• Blue Coat buys Ositis (29 October 2003)