10/23/2006 -- Cisco Systems Inc.'s acquisition of the former Meetinghouse yielded fruit last week as the networking giant announced version 4.0 of its Cisco Secure Services Client, software that provides access control for wired and wireless networks alike.

It's a stepping stone deliverable for Cisco -- mostly because it anticipates other technology moves that haven't yet come to pass, said Steven Schuchart, a senior analyst for enterprise infrastructure with consultancy Current Analysis.

"The new Cisco Secure Services Client 4.0 offers customers a supplicant with both wired and wireless capabilities that far outstrip internal Windows clients as well as Cisco's own Cisco Trust Agent," he wrote. "[It] will one day be a product that can provide all NAC services as well as future NAC enhancements, but for today, the product is an 802.1X supplicant that does not provide posture assessment."

On the other hand, Schuchart noted, the new Secure Services Client does demonstrate that Cisco has more than made good on its acquisition of Meetinghouse. "The Cisco Secure Services Client 4.0 is the direct result of the acquisition of Meetinghouse. Cisco is showing its customers extremely strong commitment to the NAC concept, not only by purchasing Meetinghouse, but also by moving so quickly to assimilate Meetinghouse's software into the Cisco ecosystem," he pointed out. He noted, for example, that the Cisco Secure Services Client 4.0 draws extensively from Meetinghouse's expertise in client-side 802.1X security software.

All the same, Cisco's new Secure Services Client is more of an interim step than a milestone deliverable. Its lack of posture assessment capabilities, in particular, is worrisome. "The Cisco Secure Services Client 4.0 does not contain posture assessment capabilities at this time. This is a concern, as clients that want posture assessment as well as a Cisco wireless supplicant will need to run Cisco Secure Services Client 4.0 as well as Cisco Trust Agent," Schuchart concluded. "Customers may not understand why Cisco purchased Meetinghouse when the company already had its internally produced Cisco Trust Agent. Competitors will also use it as a way to attack Cisco in terms of technology creation, with a 'buy your way to the top' argument." -Stephen Swoyer