TippingPoint Trucks On

As the dust settles following 3Com Corp.'s (Nasdaq: COMS) purchase of TippingPoint Technologies Inc., rivals are positioning themselves to gain market share off the back of the acquisition.

The $430 million deal is a key part of 3Coms effort to bolster its enterprise product portfolio. TippingPoint is widely acknowledged as one of the trailblazers in the VOIP security space (see 3Com Takes TippingPoint and 3Com's Enterprise Challenge).

But rivals are waiting to pounce should anything go wrong during the integration of the two firms. Jon Rabinowitz, senior marketing and communications manager at Radware Ltd. (Nasdaq: RDWR), warns that when companies get acquired they can often be thrown off track until all the restructuring is completed. “We’re looking at that acquisition as providing a window of opportunity for us to grow market share in the ISP [Internet service provider] space,” he says.

Sharon Besser, director of security solutions at rival Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP), agrees that big M&As often present an opening for competitors. “Usually a new acquisition brings turbulence to a company,” he says.

However, Ged Fitzgerald, marketing VP at TippingPoint, promises that the company will keep its eye on the ball. “The ownership of the [customer] accounts is still in the hands of the same sales force,” he says. “Customers are of paramount importance, regardless of what is going on within the company.”