Raytheon has teamed up with Vista Equity Partners to form a joint venture that will combine Websense, a Vista company, with Raytheon Cyber Products, a part of Raytheon's Intelligence, Information and Services division.
"The new company will leverage Raytheon's advanced cybersecurity technologies and Websense's industry leading TRITON platform to provide a new level of defense-grade cybersecurity to combat the evolving cyber threat environment," said a Raytheon announcement.
Event: For more cybersecurity insight, check out AFCEA's upcoming Defense Cyber Operations Symposium.
Under the $1.9 billion deal, Raytheon will own about an 80 percent stake in the new venture.
An analysis by FastCompany suggests Raytheon is looking for a way into the commercial cybersecurity market.
"That global market, which analyst firm Gartner pegs at being worth approximately $76.9 billion in spending for 2015, is something Raytheon and its competitors want a big part of," wrote Neal Ungerleider. "The defense contractor has had enterprise-oriented cybersecurity products on the market for quite some time, but has only made limited market inroads. About 50 [percent] of Websense's customers are overseas, which also gives Raytheon considerable pull outside their core market in America."
"As a cybersecurity market leader, Websense provides a proven technology platform, a team with depth and breadth of industry experience, over 21,000 customers, and a delivery channel of over 2,200 partners," said Websense CEO John McCormack.
