Over the weekend, I did a lot of reading on a company in the mail gateway business called Ironport. I mean a lot of reading. This was another consolidation (see Why behemoths buy startups & March 08′s Information Security Magazine’s Schneier/Ranum Face Off), with Cisco snatching up the market leader.

I read about capabilities, product offerings, market penetrations, strategic positioning, competitors and magic quadrants. All of this was at the urging of a friend of mine at Cisco, and how this product would drive profits for the company for the next several quarters.

I did a similar [...]