I used to work for a company NCC Group bought a few years ago and I heard Rob Cotton say the same thing...
Things got interesting really fast after our friends in Manchester bought us - changing what computers we use (on the desktop and server), changing email, etc, etc.
I'm one of the founders of iSEC (acquired by NCC in Oct 2010) and I can confirm that we've had a lot more freedom than anybody actually expected. There should be a lot more collaboration between iSEC and Matasano as Tom pointed out, but they don't have to fear the NCC borg assimilating them just yet.
From my understanding of the NGS buyout (which preceded the great NGS exodus) it was on different terms to the SecureTest buyout.
Also SecureTest and NGS were very different creatures. The phrase 'herding cats' was never so much an understatement as it was from what I've been told about life at NGS.
It's also a bit more difficult to bring that level of control into a company outside of the UK. I'm sure there'll be an eventual absorption into the NCC cube (more likely co-absorption of iSEC and Matasano into one entity if previous activities are considered) but I imagine there'll be a fair level of autonomy as long as the founders stick around.
Also I still chuckle about the SAP implementation. We offered to test it years back but for some reason NCC weren't up for it.
I used to work for a company NCC Group bought a few years ago and I heard Rob Cotton say the same thing...
Things got interesting really fast after our friends in Manchester bought us - changing what computers we use (on the desktop and server), changing email, etc, etc.