Stanley vs. Verizon:The Integrated Security Smackdown

Earlier this summer, I got a ringside seat at the latest battle in one of the security industry's oldest and most competitive rivalries. These two companies have been at each others' throats for years, competing for the same customers in similar lines of business.

With those clues I'm sure you know who I mean: Stanley and Verizon.

Yes, I know. Stanley might conjure up images of hammers and tape rules, and Verizon might be your phone company. Those are the associations you might have for each company if you're thinking with your consumer hat on.

But since you have a CSO hat too, you probably know of Stanley as an integrator of physical security systems. It also has another business unit called Stanley Convergent Security Solutions, which offers monitoring services. Stanley CSS started life as HSM, a monitoring company that Stanley acquired in 2007.

Similarly, Verizon doubled its security bet in 2007 via its purchase of Cybertrust. (Not to sidetrack too much, but the original seed of Cybertrust was industry pioneer TruSecure.) The Verizon Business unit now offers a wide portfolio of security services.

I was being facetious in the first paragraph. Stanley and Verizon probably haven't given each other much thought. But you see, they really are about to enter into serious competition. Both are aggressively looking at the market for highly integrated security systems and services.

These two companies each gave me a briefing in May.

Stanley has been doing aggressive internal training on IP network technology for years, and their folks talk with great insight about Physical Security Information Management systems, about clients' need to preserve legacy investments but to interconnect those platforms (alarm systems, fire, video, access control) with an intelligent management layer that can reduce costs on many fronts and create business intelligence.

Verizon has recognized the fact that many significant data" breaches have been the result of failed or absent physical security controls. They know that data is stored not only in networks but also on tapes and disks in offsite warehouses. They see that social engineering often includes physical components like dumpster dives or plain old trespassing. So they're launching branded services integrating physical and digital defense.

I suppose I could take this chance to say "We told you so"-oh look, I just did. Several years ago CSO stopped running debates about convergence and simply started aiming to incorporate the physical and digital dimensions into every topic where appropriate. You know, writing about security-all of it-as we've done from the starter's gun in 2002.

Rather than arguing about whether, we simply started to focus on how.

You notice I'm studiously avoiding the word convergence in this discussion. The point is to solve security problems and provide business value, not to bicker over semantics and turf and certifications. (Whatever gains you might potentially earn from holistic risk management will be burnt up if you treat it like a fight with a "winner".)

Anyway, Verizon and Stanley aren't the first or only product and service providers to dive in. Quantum Secure, Cisco, Lenel, IBM and others have also seen the logic. What's new here, to me, is the sense that the market has truly arrived. Finding two vendors seemingly coming from opposite poles and arriving at the same juncture seems like a bellwether to me.

It's going to be fun to sit back and watch a variety of vendors from very different pedigrees striving to supply more and better pieces of how to mesh physical and digital defenses. And running into surprising competitors in the process.