Building a World-Class Threat Research Organization with Intent to Acquire Lastline
By Alex Wang, Vice President of Corporate Development, VMware
In today’s highly distributed and hyperconnected world, business is not only conducted just anywhere. It’s conducted everywhere. This is why VMware is passionate about our strategic priorities.
We help organizations build the modern apps that delight customers and empower employees.
We enable these apps to be delivered from the cloud that best meets their requirements.
We provide pervasive connectivity and intrinsically secure access to these apps from any device.
These are not simply our corporate priorities. These are our customers’ priorities, which guide our actions and drive our M&A strategy. Our track record in M&A speaks for itself. We’re active, yet thoughtful. We go deep because it’s not always about just finding the best technology. It’s also about finding that next-level talent who will fit with our team.
Today, we’re excited to announce our intent to acquire Lastline, a pioneer in anti-malware research and AI-powered network detection and response. To put it simply, Lastline detects and contains sophisticated threats before they disrupt business.
Upon close, Lastline will bring world-class threat research from a renowned group of academic cybersecurity researchers. This acquisition builds on our heritage of partnership with the academic community. We’ve created a culture that makes VMware a place where academics who are building companies can come and thrive, while maintaining their academic roots. As we bring the Lastline team in, we look forward to giving them room and freedom to continue doing meaningful academic research.
Lastline will enable VMware to further increase the capabilities provided by the VMware Carbon Black Threat Analysis Unit (TAU) with network-centric threat research and behavioral analysis. This will help accelerate our customers’ journeys toward intrinsic security. We’ll add new tools to make security intrinsic across highly distributed, multi-cloud environments connected by a virtual cloud network, enabling any app on any cloud on any device.
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Forward-Looking Statements
This blog contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding VMware's intention to acquire Lastline, Inc., the expected benefits of the acquisition and complementary nature and strategic advantages of combined offerings and opportunities after close. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (1) the ability of the parties to satisfy closing conditions to the acquisition on a timely basis or at all; (2) market conditions, regulatory requirements and other corporate considerations that could affect the timing and closing conditions to the acquisition; (3) the ability to successfully integrate acquired companies and assets into VMware; (4) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations, financial condition, our customers, the business environment and the global and regional economies; (5) VMware’s customers’ ability to transition to new products, platforms, services, solutions and computing strategies in such areas as containerization, modern applications, intrinsic security and networking, cloud, digital workspaces, virtualization and the software defined data center, and the uncertainty of their acceptance of emerging technology; (6) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization software and cloud, end user and mobile computing, and security industries, as well as new product and marketing initiatives by VMware’s competitors; (7) VMware's ability to enter into and maintain strategically effective partnerships; (8) rapid technological changes in the virtualization software and cloud, end user, security and mobile computing industries; (9) other business effects, including those related to industry, market, economic, political, regulatory and global health conditions; (10) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; (11) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (12) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (13) changes in VMware's financial condition; and (14) VMware's relationship with Dell Technologies and Dell's ability to control matters requiring stockholder approval. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this blog, are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including VMware's most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
