BT buys Counterpane
And so it continues….
Reuters has a few details [link to http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-10-25T061235Z_01_WLA4961_RTRUKOC_0_UK-TELECOMS-COUNTERPANE-BT.xml no longer works].
Unsurprisingly, Bruce Schneier also has a blog entry up on this.
As expected, consolidation as the shakeup in “security tools” continues. Pretty soon all the medium size players will be left and they’ll be snapping up the blogs. What’s the “audited gross assets” of Emergent Chaos these days?
😉
‘What’s the “audited gross assets” of Emergent Chaos these days?’
Let me check my pockets….
Actually, that was the sentence I keyed on. I suppose it was put in to provide some sense of Counterpane’s size/valuation. I do not see, at all, how it’s a relevant metric in that regard. Customer count is relevant, employee headcount (which Bruce provides @ his blog) is relevant, but I don’t get how their gross assets are relevant. I don’t see their operation as being capital intensive — I see them as powered by brains.
I guess I need another 10-second MBA!
Chris,
I’m pretty sure we’re running a substantial deficit, with us chewing through gobs bandwidth every month, deferred salary and pension plans for me, the chaosmobile, and stacks of Star Wars DVDs. However, my man at Arthur Anderson hasn’t gotten back to me, and so I’m calling it a wash.
Geez, cheap shot at Arthur. The Supreme Court ruling said they were wrongly convicted…
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/31/scotus.arthur.andersen/index.html
“In a unanimous opinion, the nine justices on the high court concluded ‘jury instructions at issue simply failed to convey the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing.’ Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the opinion, saying, ‘Indeed, it is striking how little culpability the instructions required.'”
Actually an MSS business like Counterpane is quite capital intensive done right. You want to replace people with machines. You want to scale up the business according to that great software model of low incremental cost per additional sale.
On the Arthur Anderson issue they were caught bang to rights and the establishment covered up. Margaret Thatcher thought that Andersen were crooks and issued an order prohibiting them from having any UK government contracts till they reimbursed HMG for the DeLorean fraud they enabled.
Its not just DeLorean and Enron. Andersen was also the auditor at Sunbeam and several other major corporate accounting scandals. They had a reputation in the business.
They were found guilty of shreding huge quantities of documents knowing that a criminal investigation was already underway. The perps should have been sent to the slammer for ten to twenty.