Hewlett-Packard announced today that it has agreed to purchase security vendor ArcSight for US$1.5 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Updated 13:30 GMT.
Executives are planning to discuss the purchase further during a conference call Monday morning.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that HP will soon purchase security vendor ArcSight for $1.5 billion, a report that HP confirmed todat.
Citing unnamed sources, the Journal said that the deal could be announced as soon as Monday. ArcSight sells a well-regarded product that gives system administrators a way to monitor their networks and activity logs for signs of hacking or unauthorized activity.
The company had been a rumored acquisition target for the past few weeks, with Oracle, HP, and IBM all named as possible suitors.
ArcSight could not immediately be reached for comment. An HP spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.
If the report is true, it will be HP's second big acquisition in recent weeks. On September 2 it ended a bidding war with Dell, agreeing to pay $2.35 billion for virtualized storage vendor 3Par.
