Blue Coat Systems has entered into an agreement to acquire Crossbeam Systems. The acquisition is expected to close on December 31, 2012.

“Our service provider and enterprise customers are excited we are bringing together two complementary technologies,” said Greg Clark, chief executive officer at Blue Coat Systems. “With Crossbeam, Blue Coat gains a best-in-class support infrastructure and a high performing platform that scales to meet the needs of even the most complex enterprise IT environments.”

The Crossbeam X-Series portfolio provides a scalable platform that allows businesses to consolidate their security and networking infrastructures. Combined with Blue Coat’s Unified Security solution, the X-Series is a control point in the network for managing applications that secure both inbound and outbound traffic.

“Blue Coat and Crossbeam are natural partners. The combination of Blue Coat’s web security solutions and Crossbeam’s scalable X-Series platform is an exciting proposition for us,” said Matthew Gyde, global general manager of security at Dimension Data.

“Crossbeam has been a great partner for us, and we are committed to continuing and strengthening that relationship with Blue Coat going forward,” said Amnon Bar-Lev, president at Checkpoint.

Blue Coat and Crossbeam are portfolio companies of Thoma Bravo, LLC, a leading private equity firm with more than 30 years of providing equity and strategic support to experienced management teams and growing companies.