If you track IT vendor news daily, you can spot trends that analysts make big bucks writing about before the research report arrives.

One gaining speed is the move by top tech brands to be the 'end all' for the enterprise. Storage makers are expanding services and tools beyond data storage into areas like virtualization; Database players are pushing out 'all-in-one' data infrastructure systems that go way beyond just a database in a box.

Pretty much nothing is too far out with the vendor push to offer everything business IT needs.

The latest is HP and its shored up security portfolio. It used to be that hardware makers just made their products as secure as possible right? But now they also want to be your security vendor when it comes to cloud computing, networks and protecting application environments.

But is this a viable (aka fruitful) services approach for vendors?

Is it an option enterprises will consider -- choosing their hardware or server vendor when it comes to security for enterprise needs?

Or will they go to the tenured security players that offer proven and deep expertise. ( That's not to say HP's security offerings aren't proven or deep. But when you specialize you tend to have a bit of an edge.)

So I'm wondering how far this trend will go. Do this mean Symantec will start making its own branded secured hardware anytime soon? As of last October, Symantec claimed it was not but then again that was three months ago.

And as we all know, never say never when it comes to IT.