The cloud software manufacturer has now revealed that it will be buying the company for $1.54 billion.

VMware Inc., a cloud software maker, has now announced that it will be buying AirWatch, which is a privately held mobile security provider, for a purchase price of $1.54 billion.

The goal is to allow the companies to secure a place in meeting demands from companies for securing devices.

As a growing number of employers are allowing their workers to use their own mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, they are also placing themselves at an increased risk. Therefore, there is currently a rapidly rising demand from businesses for a way to secure those employee owned gadgets, as well as those that are owned by the companies but that are used by the employees, for that matter.

Some analysts see this mobile security acquisition as a threat to BlackBerry’s traditional position of dominance.

The reason that they feel this way is that BlackBerry Ltd. has, for many years, been the automatic choice for companies that are seeking to protect themselves with security products. That said, other analysts are saying that this new acquisition could lead to a rash of additional buyouts throughout this market.

The first steps that VMware, itself, had made into this market were only recent ones. It’s primary business has been in the manufacture of virtualization software, which produces a type of virtual machine which behaves in a way that is comparable to an actual computer. This gives companies the opportunity to slash their IT expenses by reducing the need for storage space and servers.

According to Pat Gelsinger the CEO of VMware, when interviewed about the deal, “AirWatch will be the center of our mobile activities,” adding that “We are really bringing together the strength we have in PCs and desktops with AirWatch’s in the mobility space.”

According to ABI Research, the mobile security marketplace will be doubling by next year, to reach over $1 billion. The VMware acquisition of AirWatch is the third major deal of this nature that has recently occurred and many are predicting that this number will grow.

A poll has now shown that retirees in Canada are likely to have cell phones, though not the latest tech.

A recent report making mobile commerce news has revealed that while the vast majority of seniors living in Canada are now using a cell phone, only a small number of them have changed those mobile devices to the more modern smartphone version.

The Media Technology Monitor report could prove to be important information for marketing and commerce.

The research was conducted over the phone with the participation of 6,014 English speaking Canadians. The interviews were held during the spring and fall of 2013, in order to help to track the trends regarding ownership and usage of mobile devices. This included measuring the movements of these gadgets among those within the senior demographic. For the purposes of this study, seniors were defined as individuals who were 68 years old or older.

Approximately 61 percent of the seniors who were polled said that they owned mobile devices.

In all, there were 774 seniors who participated within this research. Though only 61 percent of them said that they had cell phones, in the younger age groups, a much higher 87 percent said that they carried these gadgets.

Similarly, only a tiny 13 percent of seniors said that they owned smartphones, where a notably higher 63 percent of younger Canadians said that they carried these devices.

Among those that did have smartphones, seniors seemed to prefer iPhones the most, though only just slightly more than Android based devices and BlackBerry phones.

A miniscule 7 percent of the senior participants in this study said that they used their smartphones for connecting to the internet. Younger respondents responded that 54 percent of them connected to the internet using their gadgets. Furthermore, only 2 percent had ever tried to use social media on their devices. Among the younger users, about a third of smartphone users had done so. Around 17 percent of seniors had sent text messages at some point, whereas 76 percent of the other respondents said that they had.

Approximately 12 percent of the seniors polled had tablets among their mobile devices. Most often, this consisted of an iPad.