BMC Software agreed to acquire privately held Calendra, a Paris-based maker of identity management software, for $33 million in cash. The deal, should it close, would refresh a consolidation trend in the software space.

Calendra's software will make it easier for customers to create directory applications that ensure security policies are enforced over single-sign-on systems, Web portals and PKI (define) managed systems.

The vendor will use Calendra's Java-based workflow and directory management products in conjunction with its provisioning software, CONTROL-SA, to treat integration issues associated with having components from multiple vendors. Calendra will allow BMC to offer clients improved administration and self-service registration.

Cindy Sterling, director of marketing and business development in the ID management services business at BMC, said BMC will tuck Calendra into its business service management strategy for managing IT as a service. The acquisition fleshes out the second of four pillars for ID management at BMC.

Sterling also said BMC will begin delivering solutions based on Calendra's technology after the completion of the acquisition, expected this month. BMC will retain employees and offices of Calendra, which has more than 200 customers and five million managed users,

ID management is not new to BMC, Sterling noted. The company added user provisioning six years ago by buying New Dimension Software. The Calendra buy covers directory management and BMC plans to announce its plans for Web access management in the coming months.

Like many management software players, BMC is seeking to boost its market penetration at a time when ID management is in high demand from corporate customers.

Analysts say customers are looking for a blend of directory management and identity management solutions to help them shore up their IT capital and provide protection at a time when government audits and compliance regulations are pervasive.

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Adding ID management is a necessary step to help the Houston-based concern compete with IBM, Computer Associates, HP and Sun Microsystems, all of whom offer similar technology in some flavor or another.

An acquisition of Calendra would continue a steady consolidation trend.

CA acquired Netegrity in October. Last March, HP nabbed ID management outfit TruLogica. Sun acquired Waveset Technologies in 2003, while IBM gained its Tivoli Identity Management provisioning tool by purchasing Access360 in 2002.

ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg said ID management is a necessary ingredient for a company's enterprise architecture, making acquisitions a no-brainer. To date, he said the CA/Netegrity deal makes CA the market leader, with BMC playing catch up.

"We expect the gulf between these two to widen, as CA/Netegrity understands the power of service-oriented architecture (SOA) as the dominant form of enterprise architecture moving forward (as does IBM, for that matter), while SOA has largely been off the roadmap for BMC," Bloomberg said.

Sterling said that, while Web services and SOAs (define) are not an element BMC has chosen to align itself with at this time, BMC is well positioned with its established tiers of ID management.