Cisco + Nokia?

In what would easily be the largest technology merger ever Cisco is rumored to be contemplating the purchase of Nokia. Nokia is worth $71 Billion compared to Cisco's $123 Billion according to Reuters.

Just looking at the security aspects of this merger, think about Nokia's division that dabbles in firewall appliances. Nokia does over $250 million a year in sales of their Ipso appliances. That would be a real boost to Cisco (in their security business which they say is currently $1 billion a year) The only trouble is that this spells potential disaster for Checkpoint because the vast majority of Nokia's appliances are sold as Checkpoint Firewalls.

Hmmm, good news for Crossbeam? This appliance vendor could pick up the slack for Checkpoint.