Sophos today announced the acquisition of anti-spam developer ActiveState in a $23 million all-cash deal.

The British antivirus firm says the deal will allow it to diversify its product portfolio to offer "consolidated protection against security threats such as viruses, spam and policy breaches". The deal is part of a more generalised push by major AV firms to seize control of the nascent, but already crowded, anti-spam market.

ActiveState's product lines for open source programmers will continue to be developed and sold under the ActiveState brand.

ActiveState is based in Vancouver, Canada, and serves more than two million customers, including HP, Intel and Microsoft, according to the company. Sophos has purchased all the shares of ActiveState, and will retain all of ActiveState's 100-plus employees.
ActiveState's Vancouver headquarters will become an additional centre for research and development for Sophos. ®

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