With companies increasingly concerned about PCs meeting security standards before they connect to corporate networks, IBM served notice last week it isn't ceding this emerging network access control market to Cisco, Symantec, or others.

IBM will integrate security management software from Internet Security Systems with ap- pliances from Mirage Networks that monitor whether PCs and other endpoints meet a network's security standards.

Such basic integration of security technologies wouldn't usually be a big deal. Yet few vendors are specific about how network access control, or NAC, might work in corporate environments. Mirage's appliances combined with IBM's ISS Proventia Management SiteProtector software could make NAC part of the bigger security picture.

IBM also has a partnership to integrate IBM Tivoli offerings with Cisco's NAC technology. The marriage of management software with software that can permit or deny network access is gaining steam; most notably, Symantec recently bid $830 million for management software maker Altiris. Combining management and security technologies is essential to protecting networks without making them inaccessible, Symantec chairman John Thompson said at the recent RSA Conference.

Complexity and lack of standards across vendors has limited NAC's broad use. These are steps forward.