Big boys to flex security muscle at RSA

The annual RSA Conference this week is expected to show evidence of a maturing security industry with an increasing role for big-name companies.

The event has long moved far beyond its origins as a get-together for cryptogeeks. It has developed into an annual gathering for corporate IT pros and a showcase for hundreds of companies, large and small, that hawk security products and services to businesses. This year is the 16th anniversary of the event. Again change is in the air.

Andrew Jaquith, analyst at Yankee Group, said: "We're going to see a flight to quality, consolidation and quite a bit of merger and acquisition activity [in 2007]. That's what's different about this year's RSA Conference - there is the slight whiff of blood in the air. You can sort of hear the screeching noises of the vultures overhead."

Security is becoming more structured and part of the IT infrastructure at companies, instead of being added on later, analysts said. Companies including Cisco Systems, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and Sun Microsystems are vying for a piece of the pie, which may hurt the smaller industry players, they said.

Gartner analyst Ray Wagner said: "There seems to have been a recognition among some of the larger vendors that they can make money with security or, more likely, that they're not going to make any money if they don't have security in the future. That's certainly going to hurt some of the smaller vendors."

For instance, database giant Oracle for the first time will have a major presence at the RSA Conference. The company will be promoting its identity management products as well as software to secure the applications it sells to help large enterprises with things like accounting and human resources. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is slated to deliver a keynote speech on Wednesday at the San Francisco event.

Wynn White, Oracle's vice president of security and management products, said: "Oracle is more and more becoming a vendor of standalone security products that span both Oracle and non-Oracle technologies. You'll see a reflection of that at RSA," Oracle has gobbled up numerous security outfits over the past few years.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will kick off the conference today in a keynote with Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer. They are slated to talk about the software giant's vision for seamless and secure connectivity across networks and devices. Microsoft also plans to talk up security advances and partnerships.

Yankee Group's Jaquith said: "In a lot of ways security is becoming more boring. But boring is good. Boring means maturation. Boring means you're seeing large companies like IBM have a really rounded out security story. This is good for the mainstreaming of security into the way people run their business."

George Tubin, an analyst at TowerGroup, said: "Security concerns are moving away from tech geeks with pocket protectors monitoring networks in a back closet somewhere, to something that businesses managers and more senior folks are concerned with."

Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com