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Why Microsoft Acquired Secure Islands: The 2015 Deal and What Followed

Microsoft acquired Secure Islands to strengthen enterprise data classification and protection across systems, cloud services, and devices. The deal was announced in November 2015 and completed the following month.
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Microsoft announced an agreement to acquire Secure Islands on November 9, 2015, and said the deal was complete on December 11. The company’s data-classification and protection technology was intended to strengthen Microsoft’s tools for protecting business files as they moved between company systems, cloud services, partners, and devices. Microsoft did not disclose the purchase price in the announcement or its acquisition-history listing.

What did Secure Islands do?

Secure Islands was an Israel-based information-protection company. Microsoft described its technology as classifying and protecting files and helping prevent their loss across applications and locations. The goal was for protection to remain relevant even when information left an organization’s own network.

Microsoft said the technology could help protect data on on-premises systems, Azure and Office 365, third-party services, and Windows, iOS, and Android devices. That mattered to organizations sharing information with partners, vendors, and customers while seeking to retain control over business data. In its announcement, Microsoft named UBS, OSRAM, Vodafone, and Credit Suisse as Secure Islands customers.

Secure Islands’ IQProtector was an enterprise information-rights-management product. A November 2015 KuppingerCole paper hosted by Microsoft described it as classifying and encrypting files in on-premises or cloud repositories and tracking documents through collaboration, storage, and archiving. This is a historical description, not a current product specification.

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Why did Microsoft acquire Secure Islands?

Microsoft said the acquisition would strengthen its ability to protect business data as it crossed organizational boundaries and moved among cloud services, third-party services, and different device platforms. Takeshi Numoto, then Microsoft executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said the aim was to help customers secure business data “no matter where it is stored.” The announcement said Secure Islands technology was intended to be integrated into Azure Rights Management Service.

The acquisition added classification and labeling capabilities to Microsoft’s broader information-protection direction. It addressed a practical enterprise problem: applying protection to files that may be shared or stored beyond the systems an organization directly controls.

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When did Microsoft buy Secure Islands?

Date Milestone
November 9, 2015 Microsoft announced it had signed an agreement to acquire Secure Islands; regulatory approval was still required.
December 11, 2015 Microsoft updated its announcement to say the acquisition had been completed.
January 25, 2016 Microsoft’s information-protection team said Secure Islands had joined the Cloud + Enterprise Information Protection team and outlined an integration plan.
June 22, 2016 Microsoft announced Azure Information Protection, saying it built on Azure Rights Management and the Secure Islands acquisition.

Microsoft Investor Relations also lists Secure Islands in its acquisition history under November 9, 2015. The agreement announcement date and the completion date are different milestones.

How much did Microsoft pay?

The Microsoft announcement and the Investor Relations acquisition-history listing do not disclose a purchase price. A secondary report circulated a $150 million figure as a rumor, but did not verify it; it should not be treated as the deal value.

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What happened to Secure Islands after the acquisition?

Microsoft’s January 2016 post said the Secure Islands team had joined its Cloud + Enterprise Information Protection team. The post also directed interested readers at that time to ask about the existing IQProtector product; that dated contact guidance does not establish present-day availability.

In June 2016, Microsoft introduced Azure Information Protection as a service building on Azure Rights Management and the Secure Islands acquisition. Microsoft said the service combined Secure Islands classification and labeling technology with Azure RMS. This describes product lineage; it does not establish that Secure Islands continued as a separately marketed product, or what Microsoft’s current product naming, licensing, or availability is.

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