RSA 2011: Random thought on cloud security vendors

This year’s big issue at RSA Conference 2011 is cloud security. And though this may sound strange, it’s giving me flashbacks to RSA Conference 2005.

That was my first RSA conference, and to be honest, I only remember it because I was running around covering the proceedings with a 102-degree fever.

That year, anti-spyware was all the rage. Spyware was the insidious beast that was going to break the sky and send it crashing down. Anti-spyware vendors cropped up by the dozens and dozens.

A year later, many of those vendors started to get gobbled up by larger IT vendors.

So here we are in 2011, and everyone is touting the products they have to secure the cloud.

Everyone sees a business opportunity in the dangers of the cloud, and it is indeed a legitimate danger.

And like all the challenges that came before, the larger vendors will want to be able to tell their customers that they have all the robust technology needed to keep things safe.

So will next year be when we start to see scores of cloud security vendors getting acquired?

Who knows. I’m not given to making grand speculations.

But the thought did occur to me, so discuss it amongst yourselves.

–Bill Brenner