Everywhere you look these days it seems like traditional networking vendors are trying to hand out eviction notices to companies that make security appliances.
First there was Cisco with a new ASR 1000 router series that promises to integrate many of the security functions into the router. Then there is Juniper Networks, which recently announced that it has finally integrated the operating system technology from the Netscreen security appliances into the JUNOS software that powers the company's router and switches. Even companies such as SendMail are getting into the act by launching their own set of appliances that are better integrated with their messaging systems do customers theoretically don't need to rely on a provider of third-party appliances.
What makes all these efforts interesting is the current state of the economy. As IT organizations increasingly look to cut costs the one place that draws their immediate attention is the cost of security.
Today the cost of security comes largely in two forms. The cost of doing business with multiple vendors of security products and the cost of hiring all the people needed to manage the various security devices at the edge of the network.
If an IT organization can reduce the number of vendors they have to manage by relying more on the capabilities of a fewer set of products, then theoretically the IT organization wins twice over.
No doubt it will take a while for this trend to play out across the security landscape assuming that vendor such as Cisco and Juniper can finally execute against these strategies. But over the next several years it seems more than likely that they will ultimately be successful, which means that companies today that provide security appliances for any number of security functions may have to rethink how they go about adding value in a world where the fundamental requirement for their services is rapidly changing.