Dive Brief:
- Raytheon Co. and Websense are rebranding their commercial cybersecurity software products partnership under the name Forcepoint.
- As cybersecurity concerns continue to grow, more companies are looking to capitalize on the expanding market, including some large defense contractors.
- But, several defense contractors have trouble working in the commercial sector, as their business practices and procedures do not always integrate.
Dive Insight:
Some companies have found out the hard way that the commercial cybersecurity business is very different from the defense business. Over the last year, The Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp both divested their commercial cybersecurity work. Lockheed Martin Corp. is currently “looking to get out of this line of business as it moves closer to a sale of about $5 billion in various assets,” according to a report from the Washington Business Journal.
“Typically what has happened is an integrator will acquire a software company and put it inside the business unit inside one of its defense businesses,” said Ed Hammersla, Forcepoint’s chief strategy officer, in an interview with the Washington Business Journal. “The problem with that is that the metrics that you use, the procedures, the language — everything involved about managing a successful defense business doesn’t translate to a commercial software business.”
Raytheon Co. has overcome a lot of the hurdles defense contractors face “by housing those assets in joint venture with Websense now called Forcepoint.”
The move may increase market interest during a time when many enterprise security managers expect to increase their budgets.
