Product Watch: EMC Buys IT Governance Firm

The security and IT governance sectors became a bit cozier today as EMC announced it will acquire privatelyheld Archer Technologies, which sells IT governance, risk, and compliance software.

EMC, which hopes to seal the deal in the first quarter of this year, says Overland Park, Kansas-based Archer will operate under EMC's RSA Security division. The acquisition should expand RSA's risk management offerings: Archer sells its enterprise GRC software products to one in four Fortune 100 firms and boasts more than 6 million licensed users. The company also has a software-as-a-service offering.

"Traditional security management focuses primarily on addressing technology issues, but our customers are telling us that their real challenges are in the areas of policy management, audit and compliance," Art Coviello, president of RSA, EMC's security division, said in a statement. "You can't manage what you can't see. The Archer solution not only offers the visibility into risk and compliance that customers need, it brings stronger policy management capabilities to the RSA portfolio. The end result is customers are able to better manage their security programs and prove compliance across both physical and virtual infrastructures, and effectively communicate to the business."

And the Archer acquisition also will help RSA offer security as a "more integrated element over overall IT-GRC efforts," he said.

The company did not reveal financial details of the acquisition.

"From my perspective, this announcement marks the start of punctuated evolution in GRC, one where we bring these technologies deeper into the infrastructure and wider in the marketplace," blogged Todd Graham, senior technologist for RSA, today. "EMC will focus our products and partnerships to make the infrastructure both compliance- and risk-aware, giving Archer's solutions the ability to continuously report and take action based on compliance and risk. This will connect business policies all the way down to the controls and reduce the CISO's burden through automation -- an evolution I know the whole market will get behind," Graham says.

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