There is one transaction that would shake the foundation of multiple technology industries, and that would be FireEye acquiring Fastly. It would be a bold move and game changer that combines the functionality of two leading global infrastructure players. For starters, it would dramatically alter the entire Security industry and CDN ecosystem. In case anyone hasn’t noticed but the security and CDN industries are collapsing. This move would accelerate the inevitable and bring it to fruition earlier. FireEye is pulling all the stops in trying to become a dominant global security company that can detect and mitigate attacks across multiple vectors, end-to-end, from the perimeter to the cloud, and the best way to accomplish this feat is to acquire a global infrastructure company.
FireEye acquiring Fastly would confound the likes of Palo Alto Networks, Akamai, IBM, Imperva, Symantec, and many more. For the CDN industry, it would be the best thing to ever happen, as it would likely start a ripple effect where cash rich security companies go on the hunt for CDNs. FireEye can easily afford to spend several hundred million on Fastly. Why would FireEye acquire Fastly, being that Fastly is a CDN? For the last year we have been witnessing the traditional security appliance functionality make its way to the CDN infrastructure. F5 Networks, Barracuda Networks, Radware and others have noticed this new trend too. The next logical step is for next-gen firewall and MVX engine type functionality to make its way to the CDN edge.
Today, CDNs are deploying the most robust web application firewalls to date, that come packed with tens of thousands of rules for fighting known malware. Next on the CDN product roadmap, intelligent algorithm based engines that deal with unknown malware, where the platform is able to detect, correlate and mitigate threats in real time. We are living in unpredictable times, and the best way for FireEye to beat the competition is not to do what is expected, but to do the unexpected, and a Fastly acquisition would be something no one would have ever expected. (Note: I’m not a CFA or Financial Analyst of any kind so don’t rely on this data for investment decisions).