UPDATE 2-IBM says it may acquire security companies

(Adds executive's comments on acquisition strategy, byline.)

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which plans to spend a record $1.5 billion next year to develop and market security products, is seriously looking at using acquisitions to help beef up its offerings in that area, a company executive told Reuters on Thursday.

The company, whose third-quarter revenue climbed 7 percent to $24 billion, sees security as a key to growth, said Val Rahmani, IBM's general manager of infrastructure management for global technology services.

"We're looking at a lot of different companies right now, as we always do in a number of different spaces within security," she said in a telephone interview.

A year ago International Business Machines paid $1.23 billion to buy Internet Security Systems. Rahmani declined to say when IBM might make its next purchase of a security company, or whether it was considering deals that size or larger.

It is IBM's policy never to identify specific businesses that it might buy, to discuss deals that it has considered, or comment on any speculation about its acquisition activities, she added.

But she identified some areas that IBM is interested in: "Keeping the bad guys out and letting the good guys in, authenticating people once they are in and worrying about data if people leave it behind."

IBM already has "pretty good coverage...but we could always do better," she added.