Qualys has announced its intent to acquire Second Front Systems, expanding its market presence in building and delivering cybersecurity solutions for the US federal government.
“This acquisition would enable us to strengthen our federal division and expand the reach of the Qualys Gov Platform to various government sectors including military and defense,” said Philippe Courtot, chairman and CEO, Qualys.
Second Front Systems sources cutting-edge solutions in cybersecurity and advanced intelligence analytics, and delivers these solutions by working to engage the appropriate government stakeholders and modifying technology platforms to address mission requirements.
Courtot said: “The Second Front team has significant expertise helping federal agencies build state-of the-art cybersecurity solutions as they embark on their digitization efforts. We hope to welcome the entire team to our federal division.”
The transaction is expected to close in either in Q3 or Q4 of this year.
The announcement came on the same day as Microsoft announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire software development platform GitHub for $7.5bn.
Together, the two companies will empower developers to achieve more at every stage of the development lifecycle, accelerate enterprise use of GitHub and bring Microsoft’s developer tools and services to new audiences.
“Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “We recognize the community responsibility we take on with this agreement and will do our best work to empower every developer to build, innovate and solve the world’s most pressing challenges.”
Microsoft corporate vice-president Nat Friedman, founder of Xamarin and an open source veteran, will assume the role of GitHub CEO. GitHub’s current CEO, Chris Wanstrath, will become a Microsoft technical fellow, reporting to executive vice-president Scott Guthrie, to work on strategic software initiatives.
“I’m extremely proud of what GitHub and our community have accomplished over the past decade, and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead. The future of software development is bright, and I’m thrilled to be joining forces with Microsoft to help make it a reality,” Wanstrath said.
“Their focus on developers lines up perfectly with our own, and their scale, tools and global cloud will play a huge role in making GitHub even more valuable for developers everywhere."