Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Saturday, 27 July 2013

Cisco: Sourcefire founder: Cisco deal is 'a good match'

Sourcefire founder: Cisco deal is 'a good match'

By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun

July 28, 2013

Who would have guessed 15 years ago that Martin Roesch's free computer network-security program would turn into a $2.7 billion deal?
Roesch used the no-cost software he developed in 1998 — called Snort because it sniffs out trouble — as the foundation for Columbia cybersecurity firm Sourcefire Inc. On Tuesday, the company announced that it had agreed to sell itself to tech giant Cisco Systems Inc.
The price speaks to the business potential in developing good defenses as high-profile hacking of corporations and government agencies mounts. It's also a recognition of Sourcefire's reputation.

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The company's share of the global market for one type of cybersecurity — detection and prevention of intrusion on computer systems — rose from 8.4 percent in 2011 to 11.2 percent last year, according to William Blair & Co. That's behind only McAfee, Cisco and IBM.
Roesch, who goes by Marty, talked with The Baltimore Sun on Friday about the acquisition, the company's early years and the state's aspirations of becoming top dog in detecting and blocking hackers.
Did you have any inkling when you developed Snort that it could lead to a valuable business down the road, let alone one worth $2.7 billion?
No, I certainly didn't. In fact … six months before I started Sourcefire was the first time I ever entertained the idea that I could build something around Snort.
What appealed to you about Cisco as an acquirer — why was this the right deal for Sourcefire?
I think it's a good match. … Sourcefire brings great products in the threat space for dealing with modern threats; we have a lot of deep-security DNA within the company and we have a track record of being the best at what we do. … They have a huge platform for bringing these good ideas we have at Sourcefire to market.
What are your plans? Do you expect to be with Cisco for a while?
The plan is to make me the chief architect for Cisco's security business. … So, yeah, I'm planning to stick around and take all the great things that we do and all the great things that they do and build powerful capabilities that customers will love and will provide better security for everyone on the Internet.
Analysts say big tech firms are buying smaller cybersecurity companies because that's where the innovation is. Do you think Sourcefire can continue to innovate as a small piece of a huge business?
The way that Cisco is structured, their security business unit is … certainly not anywhere as huge as the whole company. What they're really encouraging us to do is come in and be an innovative part of that team. We feel like there's a lot of opportunities to continue to do innovative things.
How has cybersecurity and the threat landscape changed since you started the company?
It's changed significantly. You know, back when I got going with Sourcefire back in 2001, people knew about hackers and they knew about hacking, but their day-to-day exposure to it wasn't what it is today. … It's changed from being this abstract 21st-century problem to this "Oh, geez, I've got to remember another credit card number" problem for everyone. And that's just the tip of it. …
These things used to happen on a small scale when we got going, but now they're industrialized. … The stakes are very different.
This recognition of cybersecurity's growing importance helps explain why Maryland says it wants to be the Silicon Valley of cybersecurity. What needs to happen for the state to get there?
It's kind of happening on its own to some degree because there's so much cybertalent and cyberactivity in this part of the world, with Cyber Command over at Fort Meade … and companies like Sourcefire in the region. It's just kind of a natural occurrence with that much concentrated knowledge base and skills base in one part of the country.
What does the Cisco deal mean for cyber in Maryland?
Well, it means there's a large market for good ideas out there, and people who can execute on their ideas … have opportunities to build something really special and take it to a global audience. For entrepreneurs out there like I was when I started out in my house … sometimes, it seems pretty daunting. If you focus and stick to it, real good things are possible.

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Cisco: Agrees to Buy Sourcefire in $2.7 Billion Deal

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-23/cisco-agrees-to-buy-sourcefire-in-2-7-billion-deal.html

Cisco Agrees to Buy Sourcefire in $2.7 Billion Deal

By Jordan Robertson - Jul 24, 2013 12:30 AM GMT+0800

Enlarge image

Cisco Systems Agrees to Acquire Sourcefire for $2.7 Billion

Cisco Systems Inc. signage is displayed outside of the company's headquarters in San Jose, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Enlarge image

Cisco Chief Executive Officer John Chambers is stepping up investments in data networks to help accommodate users who are increasingly relying on smartphones and tablets to watch video and surf the Web. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the biggest maker of networking equipment, agreed to acquire Sourcefire Inc. (FIRE) for about $2.7 billion, adding anti-hacking technology used extensively by the U.S. government.
Cisco will pay $76 a share in cash, the San Jose, California-based company said today, a 29 percent premium over Sourcefire’s closing price yesterday. Cisco said the deal value includes outstanding equity awards and retention incentives.

Chief Executive Officer John Chambers is expanding in cybersecurity to fend off competition from smaller rivals such as Palo Alto Networks Inc. (PANW) and Fortinet Inc. (FTNT), which make Internet firewalls. Sourcefire’s intrusion-detection products may help Cisco win more business from corporate and government customers seeking to beef up network protections as hacker attacks become more sophisticated and widespread.
“This is certainly going to boost the revenue, but more so than anything else it is going to give Cisco engineers technical acumen and establish credibility with Cisco in this space,” Jason Ader, an analyst at William Blair & Co., said in an interview. “Sourcefire’s products are a lot better.”
Cisco’s shares fell less than 1 percent to $25.65 at 11:51 a.m. in New York, and they had advanced 31 percent this year through yesterday. Sourcefire surged 28 percent to $75.47.

‘Bigger Players’

Fortinet increased as much as 8.1 percent to $22.09, the biggest intraday gain since January, amid speculation that it might be acquired. The Sunnyvale, California-based security company could be valued at $39 a share in a takeover, according to Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets.
“We expect a surge of consolidation to take place over the next 12 to 18 months on the heels of strong secular trends, massive cyber threats, and as larger technology players look to become bigger players,” Ives wrote in a research note today.
Juniper Networks Inc., Symantec Corp., EMC Corp. and International Business Machines Corp. are among the companies that may use deals to expand in cybersecurity, Ives said. Besides Fortinet, potential targets include firewall-providers Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. and Palo Alto Networks.
Sourcefire, based in Columbia, Maryland, builds security platforms for corporate and government customers including firewalls, intrusion detectors and advanced malware protection.
Last year, about 19 percent of total revenue came from one customer that distributes Sourcefire’s products to the U.S. government, the company said in a filing. Sales rose 35 percent to $223.1 million in 2012. The company’s initial public offering in 2007 raised $86.6 million.

Traffic-Inspection

Many of Sourcefire’s products are built on Snort, an open-source program developed in 1998 by Sourcefire founder Martin Roesch. The technology is used by most Fortune 100 companies and 30 of the largest U.S. government agencies to detect attempted attacks on their networks, according to the company.
Sourcefire’s business with the U.S. government is a “very valuable” part of the deal and will give Cisco more access to key federal cybersecurity decision-makers, Christopher Young, senior vice president of Cisco’s security group, said in an interview.
“These guys made a lot of investments in advanced malware, a lot of investments in the cloud and security intelligence,” Young said. “The security market is in transition, and the game is moving to advanced malware identification and advanced threat defense.”

Security Deals

Excluding the retention-based incentives, Cisco’s offer values Sourcefire at about $2.2 billion, including net cash and options, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s about 141 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, the data show. The median paid in a survey of more than 20 Internet-security deals is about 15 times Ebitda, the data show. The largest such transaction was Intel Corp.’s takeover of McAfee Inc. for $7.7 billion, completed in 2011.
Tel Aviv, Israel-based Check Point tried to buy Sourcefire for about $225 million in 2005, then withdrew its offer, citing scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, was reviewing the deal over the transfer of sensitive technologies to a foreign company.
The boards of Cisco and Sourefire have approved their transaction, which is expected to close during the second half of 2013. Cisco said the purchase will be slightly dilutive to adjusted earnings in fiscal 2014 due to purchase accounting adjustments and integration costs.
Centerview Partners LLC advised Cisco on the transaction.
Cisco in May agreed to acquire JouleX for $107 million, adding software that helps companies manage power usage as mobile devices spur a surge in data traffic. In April, Cisco agreed to purchase U.K. networking company Ubiquisys for about $310 million, gaining technology that helps wireless carriers provide better service to smartphone and tablet users.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jordan Robertson in San Francisco at jrobertson40@bloomberg.net

AEC: ASEAN Economic Community

http://www.asean.org/communities/asean-economic-community

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) shall be the goal of regional economic integration by 2015. AEC envisages the following key characteristics: (a) a single market and production base, (b) a highly competitive economic region, (c) a region of equitable economic development, and (d) a region fully integrated into the global economy.

The AEC areas of cooperation include human resources development and capacity building; recognition of professional qualifications; closer consultation on macroeconomic and financial policies; trade financing measures; enhanced infrastructure and communications connectivity; development of electronic transactions through e-ASEAN; integrating industries across the region to promote regional sourcing; and enhancing private sector involvement for the building of the AEC. In short, the AEC will transform ASEAN into a region with free movement of goods, services, investment, skilled labour, and freer flow of capital.

ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint

The ASEAN Leaders adopted the ASEAN Economic Blueprint at the 13th ASEAN Summit on 20 November 2007 in Singapore to serve as a coherent master plan guiding the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community 2015.

Please click here for the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint

AES - Asean Economic Committee

TM: Telekom Malaysia invites LTE tenders - report

Thursday 4 July 2013 | 01:35 CET | News

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=148568571663179088#editor/target=post;postID=3981149824305957434

Telekom Malaysia (TM) has called for tenders from equipment vendors for an LTE rollout. The company has invited a number of LTE equipment suppliers, including Huawei, Ericsson, Samsung, and Alcatel-Lucent, to submit a tender for a turnkey LTE network, the Business Times reports citing unnamed sources. The request for proposal expects commercial services to be rolled out by February next year and also stipulates that Telekom Malaysia will use the 800 MHz band for its LTE service. The company aims to have up to 100,000 LTE subscribers by 2014 and more than 1 million by 2017. Telekom Malaysia told the paper that the company is exploring the expansion of its wireless broadband services in underserved areas.

Friday, 19 July 2013

Maxis: Maxis appoints Morten Lundal as CEO 1st Oct 2013

News | By V&D Bureau , 19 July, 2013

http://www.voicendata.com/voice-data/news/191942/maxis-appoints-morten-lundal-ceo
http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2013/07/20/Maxis-cleanup-a-tough-job-for-Lundal-Telco-needs-to-refocus-but-it-is-easier-said-than-done.aspx

Morten Lundal, the newly minted CEO of Maxis Bhd, is going to face a huge challenge.
His brief would have included ripping up the old culture of Maxis and turning it into a fashionable telco, one that’s in tune with the changing palette of customers.
He did that at DiGi.Com Bhd a decade ago, but will he succeed with Maxis?
“Maxis is a tough cookie and it is going to be hard to break it as it is entrenched. The job will make him sweat,” says someone who claims to know the culture at Maxis.
Whether it is tough or easy, he task is daunting on the surface. Growth in the voice business is flattish but data is experiencing exponential growth.
For a company like Maxis, it needs to re-focus on that but it is easier said than done.
Lundal will take to his post on Oct 1. During his tenure as DiGi CEO, he transformed the company and saw its market share and earnings rise. He was with DiGi from 2004 to 2008 and then left to work at Vodafone where he is now the group chief commercial officer.
The question is can he replicate that magic at Maxis?
Maxis is already undertaking a massive restructuring to shed redundancies and inefficiencies that has been ingrained over the years.
Its workforce is large at 3,500 people (though its biggest rival Celcom Axiata Bhd has 4,000 people) and its services perceived to be pricey. Compounding matters are network quality issues and a market share that is slowing eroding in some segments.
An analyst writes that Maxis is aggressively trying to regain market share from DiGi, as has been seen in the past 15 months.
And last year Maxis saw a drop in net profit to RM1.86bil from RM2.53bil a year earlier. Maxis for years had enjoyed the highest EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margins in the country, possibly the highest in the region too, of about 50%. But they are on a down trend and last year, it fell to 47.2%.
More importantly, and though Maxis has strong branding, it is lacking much presence in the youth segment and that is a cause of concern to some.
“They have to turn Maxis into a “hip” brand and entice the younger generation to be part of it. That must be his mandate,’’ says one industry expert.
Maxis of today is a very big organisation and simple decisions can take time to execute. Those in the know say their strategy on IPTV (Internet protocol television) took more than a year to decide, a luxury the telco cannot afford these days.
Lundal was selected after Johan Dennelind (Lundal’s successor at DiGi) turned down the job because he had personal matters to attend to. He was supposed to succeed Sandip Das who left in May.
The speed at which Lundal was appointed showed urgency in revamping Maxis. Technology is changing the landscape of the industry and if companies like Maxis do not get their act in right fast enough, they will lose out on opportunities, industry insiders says.
Maxis may have been first to switch on LTE (Long Term Evolution) to capture a bigger slice of the data market but players like Celcom Axiata Bhd are not far behind. Even Telekom Malaysia Bhd recently announced it wanted a bite of LTE, in the process heating up competition in the wireless/cellular segment and the data business.

The clean-up has begun
Over a month ago, the company saw the departure of very senior people as a result of a reorganisation.
From over a dozen units and departments, the organisation has been streamlined into four units and the people heading the units are young and said to be dynamic. They have to form their own teams and get into the market fast enough to stop the erosion of market share. In the interim prior to Lundal’s entry, Maxis is managed by two chief operating officers – Nasution Mohammed and Suren J. Amarasekera.
Lundal’s entry is a welcome sign for Maxis as he bring vast experience and has knowledge of the local telecoms scene, analysts feel.
Celcom Axiata Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Seri Mohammed Shazalli Ramly calls Lundal a “dear friend.”
“He was already the CEO at DiGi when I joined the industry, I was the newcomer then. Like any business, a CEO comes and go and with his capabilities, experience and knowledge, he should add back colour to the industry.”
DiGi CEO Henrik Clausen says: “For me, the key responsibility as a CEO is to bring the company to the next level and to make it a stronger company. That’s what I’ve tried to do here and it is what I’ve tried to do in my previous jobs. I think that’s how a CEO should think.
Should DiGi be worried since Lundal was with DiGi before?
“I think the CEOs of the other companies probably largely focus on what they need to do in their companies and drive them. So I’m not terribly worried about that. I think that our folks will do what’s right for DiGi,” Henrik says.
While at DiGi, one of the first things Lundal did was to tear down the walls that were keeping people disconnected from one another within the organisation. He dispensed with the silo culture that persisted.
He adopted the tagline “time to change” and aggressively implemented changes that affected the consumer, employees, the way DiGi distributes its products and services.
More importantly, he was responsible for changing market perception of DiGi from a “value” brand to a “hip” brand targeting the youth segment, writes AmResearch in its report.
The change involved aggressive pricing strategies, which included introducing cheap starter packs and bundling. At at the tail end of his tenure (he left in 2008), DiGi started adopting aggressive capital management policies, which included a few capital repayment exercises and raising dividends.
During his time at DiGi, market share increased from 16% in 2003 to 25% in 2007 despite not having the 3G capabilities of his peers, writes AmResearch.
DiGi saw tremendous growth during his leadership from 2004-2008. Group revenue and after-tax profit surged by a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 121.2% and 137.7% to RM4.81bil and RM1.14bil, respectively, writes another research house.
However, there are those who thought he did not pay enough attention to financial restructuring, which was something Dennelind handled.
Lundal, known for his more informal style of management while at DiGi, will utilise his experience in helping Maxis deal with margin pressures and the erosion in market share to its peers.
Lundal has had success in the past but the test at Maxis will arguably be his biggest career challenge yet.

Maxis Berhad has appointed Morten Lundal as its new chief executive officer (CEO). - See more at: http://www.voicendata.com/voice-data/news/191942/maxis-appoints-morten-lundal-ceo#sthash.7dZiaf0p.dpuf

He will join the company on 1 October 2013 and will report to the chairman of the Board and be appointed to the board as an executive director. - See more at: http://www.voicendata.com/voice-data/news/191942/maxis-appoints-morten-lundal-ceo#sthash.7dZiaf0p.dpuf

Maxis Berhad has appointed Morten Lundal as its new chief executive officer (CEO).
He will join the company on 1 October 2013 and will report to the chairman of the Board and be appointed to the board as an executive director.
Morten is presently group chief commercial officer of Vodafone group, a member of the executive committee responsible for commercial activities at the group level.
Prior to assuming this position in 2010, Morten was regional CEO responsible for 8 operating companies in Central Europe and Africa. He joined Vodafone from DiGi.Com Berhad Group, Malaysia (DiGi Malaysia) in 2008.
In 2004, Morten was appointed CEO of DiGi Malaysia where he was instrumental in instituting various changes crucial to DiGi Malaysia's transformation and growth. Under his leadership, DiGi Malaysia's mobile revenue market share, earnings and share price increased significantly.
Morten joined Nordic mobile operator Telenor in 1997 and held several Chief Executive Officer positions including for the Internet Division and Telenor Business Solutions as well as the position of executive vice president, Corporate Strategy.
He holds a Master of Business Administration from IMD Lausanne and a Master of Business and Economics from the Norwegian School of Management (BI).
"He has demonstrated the ability to take bold steps and make radical changes to align an organisation to anticipated changes in the industry and consumer demand. We particularly welcome his focus on innovation and management development," said Raja Tan Sri Dato' Seri Arshad bin Raja Tun Uda, chairman, Maxis.
"I am very happy to join Maxis and look forward to using my experience and energy to build on the inherent strengths of the company and its leadership of the telecommunications industry in Malaysia," said Morten Lunda
- See more at: http://www.voicendata.com/voice-data/news/191942/maxis-appoints-morten-lundal-ceo#sthash.7dZiaf0p.dpuf

News | By V&D Bureau , 19 July, 2013