BMC to Shoot More Trouble in J2EE, .NET

BMC Software today agreed to purchase Identify Software Ltd. for $150 million in cash, a move that will add a new dimension of management software to BMC’s business services management portfolio.

Tel Aviv-based Identify makes application problem resolution (APR) software, which helps business customers pinpoint glitches in J2EE, .NET and Windows applications before they can impede or crash crucial transactions.

Forrester Research analyst JP Garbani said Identify’s AppSight Problem Resolution System uses the company’s patented Black Box technology to detect a problem, capture information about the problem and let users reproduce the problem’s sequence so that IT administrators can debug the application.

Such technology isn’t entirely new to BMC, which has offered Patrol for J2EE, but the product lacks the visibility and breadth of Identify’s system, said Garbani.

While Identify’s software fills a hole in BMC’s transaction management portfolio, BMC will also benefit from Identify’s more than 500 business customers. Identify customers are typically mid-size to large scale organizations in the enterprise and software vendor segments.

BMC expects to close the deal during the first quarter of fiscal year 2007.

The purchase is the latest in a string of acquisitions in the multi-billion-dollar market for ensuring applications can overcome faults, errors and other glitches to keep software up and available to customers and business users.

In January, CA agreed to pay $375 million for Wily Technology, which allows IT managers to detect and diagnose application slowdowns and failures as they occur and before they impinge on system performance.

That built on CA’s $350 million purchase of Aprisma.

IBM also plays in this space, having acquired Cyanea in 2004. HP and Mercury Interactive also compete in this space.