• Thermo Fisher Scientific to acquire Ahura Scientific for $145 million in cash

    Ahura Scientific’s products expand Thermo Fisher’s portfolio of portable analytical devices designed to provide customers with the ability rapidly to identify and authenticate a range of molecular and elemental substances in the field; Ahura Scientific has approximately 120 employees and generated full-year revenue of approximately $45 million in 2009; Thermo Fisher Scientific had $10.5 billion in revenues in 2008; the company has approximately 35,000 employees and serves more than 350,000 customers

  • IBM to acquire National Interest Security

    NISC’s expertise includes systems engineering, biometrics, systems integration, software development, security, analysis support, and critical infrastructure protection; the acquisition will enable IBM to expand its capabilities with federal, state, and local government entities in the areas of defense, healthcare, energy, logistics, and security

  • Tyco acquires Broadview Security

    Tyco, whose subsidiary ADT is holds the No. 1 position in residential security in the United States, has acquired the holder of the No. 2 position, Broadview Security; the combined company will have about 28 percent of the American residential market; even as the acquisition leads to more concentration at the top of the market, there are still 10,000 companies vying for residential home security business; last fiscal year ADT’s North American residential and small business operation had revenues of $2.2 billion, while Broadview’s revenues were about a quarter of that

  • ManTech to acquire Sensor Technologies Inc.

    ManTech will pay $242 million in cash for Sensor Technology; Sensor’s largest customer is the U.S Army through several contracts, including its prime position on the S3 Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract, on which it has received more than $2.5 billion in task orders to date

  • NICE acquires Orsus

    NICE, a leading provider of security solutions, acquires Orsus, a pioneer in situational awareness, for an all-cash $22 million; critical incidents have led organizations to make massive investments in a wide range of security technologies and in corresponding manpower; trouble is, these security tools often exist in different silos, which lead to information overload, making it difficult to get the complete picture and manage critical incidents effectively; the combined NICE-Orsus solution addresses this problem

  • United Technologies to buy GE Security

    UTC will acquire the GE Security business from GE for $1.82 billion; UTC says the acquisition will strengthen its presence in the $100 billion global fire-safety and electronic-security industry

  • McAfee acquires MX Logic to enhance cloud security

    McAfee acquires MX Logic for $140 million; MX Logic has 40,000 customers and four million end users; the deal is designed to bolster McAfee’s existing “security as a service” portfolio; McAfee, alongside Panda and Trend Micro, is among the most aggressive players in the security market in talking up the benefits of cloud-based architectures

  • Smith & Wesson moves into perimeter security market

    Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation to acquire Universal Safety Response, Inc. (USR); USR is the creator of the GRAB vehicle safety barrier; the move expands S&W’s revenue base into commercial, non-firearms categories

  • FLIR acquires Salvador Imaging

    Acquisition will allow FLIR to expand into markets related to its core infrared business

  • Roche takes over Genentech for $47 billion

    Swiss drug giant pays $95 per share for 44 percent of Genetech (Roche already owns 56 percent); the combined company would be the seventh-largest U.S. pharmaceutical company in terms of market share and would generate about $17 billion in annual revenues with a payroll of around 17,500 employees in the U.S. pharmaceuticals business alone

  • Certicom agrees to takeover by VeriSign

    VeriSign’s $92 million bid is 40 percent higher than RIM’s failed hostile offer of $66 million

  • ManTech acquires ETG

    ETG is a privately held and highly specialized company providing computer network operations and computer forensics; in acquiring it, ManTech signals its intent to expand further into the cybersecurity counter-terrorism technology support market

  • QRSciences Holdings acquires Spectrum San Diego

    The acquisition will boost QRSciences’ product offering of security related applications including the detection of explosives and narcotics, metal detection and imaging

  • Stanley closes Oberon acquisition

    Purchase puts integrator on the biometrics fast track, enabling it to compete with some of the largest systems integrators in the government market for opportunities with the Defense Department

  • Biometric empire building: L-1 Identity Solutions acquires Bioscrypt

    Robert LaPenta’s L-1 has been steadily, methodically pursuing an acquisition campaign which would make the company an identification authentication superpower; latest acquisitions: Bioscrypt and the ID systems business of Digimarc