nCipher buys NeoScale.

For $1.95bn. For your mental picture, I am sitting here goggle-eyed in amazement.

### UPDATE: Tyler informs me that it's million, not billion. My eyes have popped back in. I'm leaving the story up as a warning to others of how not to jump to conclusions. ###

What the hell just happened here?

I've stayed away from commenting on this because of the nature of my business and the fact I am a competitor of both companies, but... er, what?

Co-founder Alex Van Someren (brother of other founder Nicko VS) left nCipher a couple of weeks ago, it seems that someone else is in charge of the product decisions now. This is a huge move for nCipher.

They were also looking for a new VP of Professional Services last month, in either Cambridge, UK or Boston, MA. All of this points to huge expansion. But on what basis?

My only guess is that nCipher are wanting to play more on their Key Management portfolio, because they've seen how well it does for... well, us, actually. And it just so happens that NeoScale have a device based approach. Oh well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.

But where did they get all this money from? I have to ask: Will they have enough left over to hire the developers to put it all together?