Cisco's acquisition of XML vendor Reactivity today could set the stage for a new approach in handling the Web services security problem, experts say.

Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately held Reactivity, a maker of specialized XML processing hardware, for $135 million this morning. On the surface, the deal looks like a simple play for the networking giant to incorporate Web services capabilities into its hardware lines, but security experts inside and outside Cisco say there may be more to it than that.

The Reactivity technology will eventually be built into the Cisco security architecture, so that application-to-application controls can be implemented along with user-to-application controls, says George Kurian, vice president and general manager for Cisco's Application Delivery unit.

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