Cisco's proposed acquisition of email and web security specialist IronPort will bring the network giant into new areas of competition with established messaging security vendors, said analysts.

The $830m deal, expected to close in the third quarter of this year, will see IronPort's existing appliances integrated into Cisco's self-defending network infrastructure, adding messaging and email security to a loosely defined framework of firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), intruder detection/prevention systems (IDS/IDP) and anti-virus agents.

"Part of the synergy [of this deal] is that it creates a platform for Cisco to build security for unified communications, which will pit it against similar solutions offered by Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, as well as Microsoft's Exchange hosted services," said Gartner research director for security Peter Firstbrook.

Firstbrook doubts whether IronPort's existing customer base, 25-30 percent of which is based outside of America, will object to the deal.

"Lots of customers with legacy [messaging] solutions are currently suffering with image based spam attacks. This way, they get the benefits of new solutions backed by Cisco support and Cisco discounts," he said.

"Using the network as a flexible platform to integrate IronPort's technologies, Cisco will be able to build new security applications as customers' demands evolve," said Richard Palmer, senior vice president of Cisco's security Technology Group.