Lumension – shining a light?

The security industry is full of change and the re-branding of Patchlink earlier this month to become Lumension reflected that company’s next stage of evolution.

Following a no doubt frantic (and expensive) few months the re-branding is the final piece in the re-launch of Patchlink as a serious player in the market place and moves them on from their traditional patch-based heartland. Now working flat out to integrate the Patchlink products with those acquired with the Securewave merger earlier this year, the team at Lumension hope to have an industry leading suite of products able to take on the likes of McAfee and CA.

This is no mean feat.

Patch management is one of those Cinderella areas of IT which is ignored by many and its associated costs lost in the giant bucket marked IT support. The reality is that a decent patch management testing and deployment strategy can save organisations a lot of time, money and inconvenience but, unfortunately, few could really care.

Cleverly, Lumension are not walking away from their considerable brand and reputation equity in the patch management market as their relevant products will still have the Patchlink moniker. Similarly the ex-Securewave products still retain their Sanctuary branding so buyers know what they are getting.

The next 6 months will prove interesting for Lumension. A re-branding is one thing, executing on a complex integration of disparate products another. Somehow I get the feeling that they will be successful, and if the confidence of the Lumension team is anything to go by the competitive landscape may be in for a bit of a shake up.