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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

There is no such thing as a non-talent acquisition in consulting. We're not going anywhere; like iSEC before us, we continue to run independently as Matasano.

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So you're acquired in a "becomes a subsidiary" sense rather than "be assimilated in the borg" sense?

Yes. The parent comment illustrates exactly what happens when you try to Borg a high end consulting firm.

So have the acquired you solely for your (current & expected) revenue, or will you bring other wider benefits to the group? Will you just be producing profits for them, or are you planning any kind of inter-play with other group companies?

I'm not sure how to answer this but I am psyched to be able to talk to iSEC people more. :)

Thats a good, diplomatic answer :)

I love your verbing of "borg".

You will be Borged. Resistance is futile.

I've actually worked with iSEC people last year, and only realized they were part of NCC Group today. Totally independent shop.

Are you sure about that?

I used to work for a company NCC Group bought a few years ago and I heard Rob Cotton say the same thing...

Things got interesting really fast after our friends in Manchester bought us - changing what computers we use (on the desktop and server), changing email, etc, etc.

I'm one of the founders of iSEC (acquired by NCC in Oct 2010) and I can confirm that we've had a lot more freedom than anybody actually expected. There should be a lot more collaboration between iSEC and Matasano as Tom pointed out, but they don't have to fear the NCC borg assimilating them just yet.

From my understanding of the NGS buyout (which preceded the great NGS exodus) it was on different terms to the SecureTest buyout.

Also SecureTest and NGS were very different creatures. The phrase 'herding cats' was never so much an understatement as it was from what I've been told about life at NGS.

It's also a bit more difficult to bring that level of control into a company outside of the UK. I'm sure there'll be an eventual absorption into the NCC cube (more likely co-absorption of iSEC and Matasano into one entity if previous activities are considered) but I imagine there'll be a fair level of autonomy as long as the founders stick around.

Also I still chuckle about the SAP implementation. We offered to test it years back but for some reason NCC weren't up for it.

Yes, I am sure.

That's very nice. Congrats.

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