KEY POINTS:
Auckland-founded IT security company Marshal is undergoing its third corporate overhaul in six years but says it is committed to retaining its New Zealand base.
Marshal will today announce plans to merge with United States-based security firm 8e6 Technologies, a move it says will give the combined business more muscle to compete in the highly competitive global corporate IT security market.
Marshal Software was established in South Auckland in 1997 and has carved out a respectable slice of the global security market, becoming best known for its MailMarshal and WebMarshal products.
The business was acquired by Nasdaq-listed US IT firm NetIQ in 2002, but failed to gel effectively with its new owner, leading to a 2005 buyout of the business by senior Marshal managers.
Marshal says it now has 18,000 customers in 97 countries, and counts 40 per cent of Fortune 500 companies in the US as customers.
Although its global headquarters shifted to Basingstoke in Britain after the management buyout, Marshal has retained a strong presence in Auckland, and employs about 60 staff locally, up from about 30 in 2006.
The Auckland staff work mainly on the research and development side of the business, including running the company's Threat Research and Content Engineering (Trace) facility which monitors web security threats.
Marshal's vice-president of sales for the Asia Pacific region, Jeremy Hulse, said the merger with 8e6 Technologies would enable the expanded business - to be called Marshal8e6 - to provide customers with a more comprehensive range of security products and services to protect against both email and internet security threats.
"There's a very strong, complementary roadmap between Marshal and 8e6 and we saw that the fit was a very good thing for Marshal," Hulse said.
"We've seen good growth as Marshal and we expect, as customer demand grows, Marshal8e6 will continue that [growth]."
He said the merger deal would combine 8e6's strong presence in the US with Marshal's international reach.
8e6 is headquartered in Orange, California, and was founded in 1995. Its initial business focus was filtering pornography out of web content downloaded to homes and schools. It has expanded into corporate web security business, but retains a strong presence in the education market.
Hulse said there were no plans to scale back in New Zealand.
"The Marshal8e6 presence will remain very strong in New Zealand as will the base there," he said. "There's very strong intellectual capability within the group in New Zealand."
8e6 Technologies' chief executive George Shih will be interim chief of the merged Marshal8e6 business while Marshal's Basingstoke-based chief, Ed Macnair - a key figure in the 2005 management buy-out - will become the company's chief strategy officer.
Global growth is increasingly important for companies in the competitive IT security sector. Last month industry giant Symantec agreed to buy Sydney-based MessageLabs for US$695 million. In 1998 Symantec spent US$27.5 million to acquire Auckland-based Binary Research's Ghost software and development team.
COMPANY MILESTONES
* 1997 - Marshal Software is formed as a security product subsidiary of South Auckland-based software developer Designer Technology.
* 2002 - After a period of expansion into global markets, Marshal is acquired by Nasdaq-listed American firm NetIQ for US$23 million ($39.95 million).
* 2005 - Marshal's management team buy the company off NetIQ.
* 2008 - Marshal merges with US security firm 8e6 Technologies to form Marshal8e6.
www.marshal.com
www.8e6.com
