If there was any doubt in your mind about how much the TippingPoint team wants to be part of 3Com, you should listen to this video of Brian Smith, chief architect of Tipping Point talking to SearchSecurity.com.  Brian comes right out and says that the original idea behind the 3Com acquisition was synergies of putting security into switches and routers.  After about a year of trying to do this, he says that he realized it was a "fools errand" because security is evolving so much quicker than networking.  I don't know, but that is probably not the opinion of Cisco, HP ProCurve, Foundry, Extreme, Enterasys and Juniper who all seem to be doing exactly that. Perhaps it had more to with a clash of personalities there than technology?

Later in the interview Brian states that after the expected synergies never materialized it was decided to spin TippingPoint off on its own IPO. Luckily they had retained their own identity which Brian says may not have been possible if they were acquired by Cisco or IBM. He basically says that the merger was a failure and they wanted to go their own separate ways.  Than the Bain deal put everything on hold and now post-Bain deal they are becoming more and more autonomous.  Though he doesn't come out and say it, his body language is screaming that he cannot wait to be spun out from 3Com.

My advice is to be careful what you wish for.  The security industry is not what it was before the acquisition and without someone's deep pockets behind you and the inability to move out successfully beyond anything besides IPS, TippingPoint may not find it as welcoming as they think.

If there was any doubt in your mind about how much the TippingPoint team wants to be part of 3Com, you should listen to this video of Brian Smith, chief architect of Tipping Point talking to SearchSecurity.com.  Brian comes right out and says that the original idea behind the 3Com acquisition was synergies of putting security into switches and routers.  After about a year of trying to do this, he says that he realized it was a "fools errand" because security is evolving so much quicker than networking.  I don't know, but that is probably not the opinion of Cisco, HP ProCurve, Foundry, Extreme, Enterasys and Juniper who all seem to be doing exactly that. Perhaps it had more to with a clash of personalities there than technology?

Later in the interview Brian states that after the expected synergies never materialized it was decided to spin TippingPoint off on its own IPO. Luckily they had retained their own identity which Brian says may not have been possible if they were acquired by Cisco or IBM. He basically says that the merger was a failure and they wanted to go their own separate ways.  Than the Bain deal put everything on hold and now post-Bain deal they are becoming more and more autonomous.  Though he doesn't come out and say it, his body language is screaming that he cannot wait to be spun out from 3Com.

My advice is to be careful what you wish for.  The security industry is not what it was before the acquisition and without someone's deep pockets behind you and the inability to move out successfully beyond anything besides IPS, TippingPoint may not find it as welcoming as they think.

Saw a couple of reports today including this one in the NY Times that the Bain, 3Com, Huawei deal is dead again.  Of course we have heard this before, only to see the parties try to figure something else out.  But this time it sounds like Bain is done wasting cycles on this deal and going to move on.  3Com's stock took a dive on the news. 

I personally think that if they were going to divest the Tipping Point stuff, what was the big deal with this one. Instead now 3Com has a much narrower potential universe of partners/acquirers to deal with.  It materially decreases the worth of their company and their ability to compete.  Looks like Cisco is the winner here.  I wonder what there position on this was?

Update: Now comes a report that 3Com is demanding a 66 million dollar "break up" fee from Bain for withdrawing from the deal for no good reason.  I don't know but the government not letting the deal go through seems like a good reason to me.  However, deals like this often have a break up fee clause.  Guess we will have to see how this one turns out.

Saw a couple of reports today including this one in the NY Times that the Bain, 3Com, Huawei deal is dead again.  Of course we have heard this before, only to see the parties try to figure something else out.  But this time it sounds like Bain is done wasting cycles on this deal and going to move on.  3Com's stock took a dive on the news. 

I personally think that if they were going to divest the Tipping Point stuff, what was the big deal with this one. Instead now 3Com has a much narrower potential universe of partners/acquirers to deal with.  It materially decreases the worth of their company and their ability to compete.  Looks like Cisco is the winner here.  I wonder what there position on this was?

I was surprised to read this report by Matt Hamblen in ComputerWorld today that evidently the 3Com, Bain and Huawei deal may be rising from the dead.  3Com adjourned a shareholder meeting today until next Friday to give the parties time to work out a new plan and submit a new plan to those wild and crazy free trade hippies at CFIUS. 

As I have written before CFIUS just does not take kindly foreign companies buying US based security companies, let alone a Chinese company run by a former Peoples Republic Army Officer owning a piece of the action.  However, timing is everything and maybe the parties can take a new angle here.  Spinning out Tipping Point I would imagine has to be a first step in any acceptable plan.  I think the parties can come up with a plan that the government can improve.  To use another cliche, my reason is that necessity is the mother of invention.  At this point and at their current stock price, if 3Com can't figure out a way to get this done, they are in a heap of trouble.  What options do they have? 

Without bringing politics into the equation, I think a healthy 3Com that can compete with Cisco is important.  Taking Tipping Point out of the equation, I don't see what should hold this deal up. I think it will be best for a healthy competitive networking gear marketplace.  The current near monopoly situation in this market is not healthy.  Some of the weak sisters have to be removed and strong competition will result in the industry as a whole improving and the customer will win with better products, cheaper!

I will be watching next Friday to see what happens but I hope they can put something together that works this time!