Security giant McAfee has agreed to acquire network security firm Secure Computing in a $465m deal designed to extend McAfee's reach in the network security space and boost its security-as-a-service capabilities.

The transaction would make McAfee one of the largest network security providers, with annual revenues of roughly $500m.

Vimal Solanki, vice president of worldwide solutions marketing at McAfee, said that the deal would allow the firm to offer "all the technologies a CIO would need to protect the network, in a single solution".

Secure Computing's TrustedSource technology was also a factor in the proposed acquisition, as it could extend McAfee's capabilities in this area and address the needs of all sizes of organisation, Solanki added.

"Small to medium sized firms do not want the hassle of installing software, and in the enterprise space they view [security-as-a-service] as an extra layer of defence," he said.

"The combined company will have a complete range of offerings - application, virtual application, software package and security-as-a-service."

Andrew Kellett of analyst Butler Group said the deal follows the long term trend in IT security of consolidation.

"Even the pure play vendors are coming up quickly using the acquisition route to extend their range of services," he added. "There looks to be some good synergies between these two [vendors] but also some areas where we could see products disappear."