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Fixmo Acquired by Good Technology

Fixmo

FixmoA couple weeks ago in these pages, Cantech intuited that a recent critique posted on the Inside BlackBerry blog of U.S. mobile security firm Good Technology meant that the company, which recently filed for an IPO, was preparing a takeover of Toronto-based Fixmo Inc.

And indeed, this morning Good Technology announced the acquisition of most of Fixmo’s American assets, including Fixmo U.S. Inc. along with the integration of Fixmo’s Sentinel Integrity Services into its own product. Good Technology will also leverage Fixmo’s staff at its Sterling, Virginia and Toronto offices.

What’s behind this takeover? The companies had been locked in an IP battle over patents filed by Good Technology against Fixmo for the past two years.

In January 2012, Good Technology filed several patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against Toronto firm Fixmo Inc. relating to its “system and method for globally and securely accessing unified information in a computer network,” one among several alleged infringements.

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Last August, Good Technology provided an update to the lawsuit’s progress indicating that a judge had “substantially confirmed Good Technology’s overall position, ruling in its favor on all but two (2) of the thirty (30) patent claim terms at issue.”

“With the addition of Fixmo’s unique device integrity and tamper detection technology to the industry’s leading secure container and platform from Good,” said Good Technology Chairman and CEO Christy Wyatt, “we can uniquely deliver defense-grade security to ensure all layers, from the OS to applications and data shared between apps, are protected with the most advanced security framework available, unmatched by any other mobile solution provider.”

In the meantime, as the lawsuit dragged on, Fixmo continued to develop a working relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense relating to its encryption platform.

Fixmo’s roster was studded with ex-BlackBerry employees, and that security expertise contributed to the Good’s desire to acquire the company. With the rise of bring-your-own-device workplace policies, and Fixmo’s catering to that market with a credibly secure platform, the acquisition of Fixmo can be seen as a great stride forward by Good Technology in competing with BlackBerry for that market.

“This acquisition, and the strength of our combined solution, will provide the most advanced capabilities for our customers and more opportunities to innovate for our partners and employees,” said Fixmo CEO Rick Segal.

Aside from merely acquiring other companies, Good Technology has been developing its own security-minded mobile collaboration platform, particularly Connect, which is about to move out of beta, as well as an announcement this morning that a version of Salesforce1’s mobile CRM app will be able to run in Good’s container.

The acquisition brings the litigation to an end.

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  1. Just for the record, what you saw on that “update” was a claim construction update and in no way was a win, validation or anything of the sort. We didn’t do that type of update thing rather focused on products. We’re all friends now and the combined entity will be a major force in the security business. All the shareholders, I hope, will make some money.

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