Intellectual Property Law

Schneier: RSA Conference Destined to Deflate

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

In his latest column for Wired.com, Bruce Schneier describes the communications breakdown between vendors with security solutions to sell, and the companies they hope to sell to. He says this this is the beginning of security as a standalone product.

No one wants to buy security. They want to buy something truly useful -- database management systems, Web 2.0 collaboration tools, a company-wide network -- and they want it to be secure. They don't want to have to become IT security experts. They don't want to have to go to the RSA Conference. This is the future of IT security.

You can see it in the large IT outsourcing contracts that companies are signing -- not security outsourcing contracts, but more general IT contracts that include security. You can see it in the current wave of industry consolidation: not large security companies buying small security companies, but non-security companies buying security companies. And you can see it in the new popularity of software as a service: Customers want solutions; who cares about the details?

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Image: Geekz Shop

Full post as published by Threat Level on April 17, 2008 (boomark / email).