Dell Ups Encryption Game with Credant Acquisition

Besides death and taxes there appear to be at least two other things that businesses can count on in 2013. The number of times someone loses data or someone tries to steal data on those devices will increase along with the penalties attached for failing to comply with any number of regulations that in one respect or another address data loss.

To better help IT organizations address those issues, Dell acquired yet another vendor at the close of 2012. Dell has acquired Credant Technologies, a long-time partner of Dell that specializes in data encryption.

According to Brett Hansen, executive director of end-user computing at Dell, Credant differs from rivals in this space in that its technology allows policies to be attached to specific sets of data that stay with that information regardless of whether it resides on a mobile computing device, PC, on-premise server or in the cloud. Using templates that can be managed via a single console, Hansen says Credant provides customers with a way to unify the management of encryption that is device-independent.

Credant CEO Bob Heard says that with the rise of the BYOD phenomenon it’s clear that compliance and security issues will be rising to the top of the IT agenda in 2013. Not only is there more data at risk than ever, Heard says the number of lawsuits related to lost or stolen data is steadily increasing. IT organizations need an approach that allows them to encrypt data regardless of where it resides that is not only simple to manage, but also doesn’t adversely affect application performance.

The acquisition of Credant, says Heard, essentially solidifies a long-standing relationship between the two companies, or as Heard describes it, after dating for a number of years Dell decided to finally “put a ring on it.”

As such, the acquisition of Credant doesn’t fundamentally change a Dell product lineup that already includes Credant encryption products. But what it does do is provide that much more additional motivation to make sure encryption becomes the IT rule rather than exception from here on out.