In what is a surprise to probably no one, as of today I’m
joining Securosis as Analyst/President. For all intents and purposes, Security
Incite and Securosis are merging operations.

The old adage goes that when one door closes, another opens.
In this case, it’s absolutely true, though not necessarily in that order. Some back-story
will clarify why this makes sense. During the summer of 2008, Rich and I had
decided to start a new research company. We were moving towards launching
around Labor Day 2008.

Then I got the call, from the only guy I would consider
working for, about joining eIQ. It was a truly agonizing decision for me. I
thought I had something left to prove on the vendor side, and this was an
opportunity that I thought had all the pieces for success. I told Rich this just delayed our plans, but I knew he needed to
keep moving forward, and that he would.

Over the past 18 months, Rich and Adrian have done a really
great job building the brand of Securosis and establishing a very real and
credible voice on security topics. Best of all, their research philosophy of
Totally Transparent Research totally aligns with my own research philosophy. Truth be told, I have to admit to being jealous when they launched the new Securosis
site because it was everything I thought IT research should be.

For me, eIQ didn’t work as I had hoped. So when I got laid off, the second call I made was to Rich. Yes, I
called the Boss first. Rich, Adrian and I decided to move forward as one
entity. We plan to build the next great IT research firm.

Yes, I could have stayed solo. In just the few weeks I’ve
been back on the research side, I have lots of activity in the works. But that
limits my ability to deliver pragmatic and actionable information to the grossly
underserved market of mid-market IT and security professionals. This strategy will
become clear in the coming weeks as we unveil our research products strategy
and our individual research agendas.

Equally important, I’m surrounding myself with guys I
respect enough to push me, but also guys that I really enjoy hanging out with.
In retrospect, I really missed the collegial and challenging environment I
experienced as a META Group analyst. Working by myself was great, but I know I
want to really make a difference in this space. That means I’ve got to partner
with like-minded individuals who will hold me accountable and tell me when my
stuff sucks.

Rest assured, one of the reasons I am following this path is
because Rich, Adrian and I have similar philosophies on pretty much everything.
We’ve decided to keep the Securosis "brand" as the company name, but
many aspects of Security Incite will integrate with the Securosis offerings. So
you’ll see a "Securosis Incite" blog post every week and all of our
research will be "Pragmatic" in nature.

I’m really excited for the next stage in my personal journey
as part of Securosis. Later today I’ll be doing a POPE analysis of the move and
we’ve posted a FAQ up on the Securosis blog. If you haven’t already,
you’ll want to add the Securosis blog (http://securosis.com/feeds/blog)
to your RSS reader or get our stuff via email to keep current. The links for
email newsletter signup are on the blog page.

Though this ends Security
Incite as a stand-alone research entity, it’s really the beginning of something
with far more potential. Thanks for supporting me over the past few years.
Really truly thanks.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Mike Rothman's blog authored by Mike Rothman. Read the original post at: http://securityincite.com/blog/mike-rothman/security-incite-contracts-a-case-of-securosis