A rose by any other name . . .

One of the things that strikes me with all of the consolidation in the security industry, is that some of the products being snapped up by other companies at fire sales were frankly crappy technology and crappy solutions before they were bought in the fire sale.  Now just because they have another name attached to them, are we to believe that this technology that failed before and was rejected by the market, is now transformed from the frog to the prince?  I think not.  Recent deals such as Checkpoint-NFR and Sophos-Endforce are examples where technology that the market rejected is being retreaded under a new name by the new vendor.  My take is that if it sucked then, it sucks now, regardless of whose name is on it. 

The latest example of this is the recently announced 3Com NAC solution (lets stop calling them Tipping Point, that is the name of their product, they were bought and paid for by 3Com and should wear the name proudly).  I have it on good authority that much of the "fine grained control" and other features of their recently announced NAC solution came from a yet unannounced acquisition by 3Com of a near bankrupt wireless security/NAC firm whose technology was 3rd rate at best and not great for NAC at all.  The company this came from shopped it all around town, we actually had a chance to take a good look at it and passed. So now the bottom feeders over at 3Com, without announcing the origins of this technology (the fact that they have not announced it, leads me to believe even they are ashamed of it), touts how they marry it to IPS and abracadabra, they have NAC.  I think the market is going to see right through this charade.  Putting the 3Com name on this failed technology doesn't do it.  Also, the old Tipping Point IPS technology that 3Com sells is certainly a good IPS, it takes more than that to have a real NAC proudct.  Lets stop the bandwagon jumping.