While not commenting directly on any deal, Jon Oltsik, principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, says that in terms of product, NetWitness with its would give RSA with its enVision security information and event management (SIEM) offering "an additional source of network activity" and '"another angle on analysis."

And competitors waiting to see if the RSA/NetWitness deal happens seem to agree.

The traditional log-based that RSA has with enVision would get more "telemetry, forensics and anomaly detection," says Tom Turner, senior vice president of marketing at Q1 Labs, noting that's why Q1 Labs years ago integrated those kinds of functions into its own SIEM.

RSA and NetWitness are hardly strangers. Last July, NetWitness joined the RSA Secured Partner Program and the two announced a level of interoperability between their products.

in Network World's Wide Area Network section.