Collaborative software development firm CollabNet Monday
purchased Enlite Networks for an
undisclosed sum to bolster its staff and project management software lines.
CollabNet picked up the Mountain View, Calif. startup and its entire staff,
as well as Enlite Networks India, a separate related company from Chennai,
India. CollabNet also announced it has opened a development office in
Chennai, as well as appointed former Enlite CEO, Dr. Gopinath Ganapathy, to
vice president of engineering.
CollabNet’s core software suite SourceCast unifies the distributed
development process and includes applications for software development,
technical communication, knowledge management, and project administration to
help remote development teams work together. It automates phases of the
software development chain.
Enlite Networks specializes in developing collaboration technologies and
products for electronics firms. Its flagship offering, iGrid, lets managers
monitor aspects of the product design process. iGrid is a likely complement
to SourceCast.
By buying Enlite Networks, its India-based cousin and their respective
staffs, as well as setting up shop in Chennai, Brisbane, Calif.’s CollabNet
hopes to be able to significantly expand its sphere of influence in the
east, where it will be able to hawk its SourceCast environment to a broader
developer base. The firm doubled its engineering staff with the buy.
Apache Software Foundation Co-founder Brian Behlendorf set up CollabNet in
July 1999 to address other aspects of software development. It backs up
SourceCast with a suite of consulting services, and aims to help
corporations cut costs by allowing them to team up for remote development
projects. CollabNet hosts open-source sites for RealNetworks, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank), and Sun Microsystems. In addition, the company hosts developer networks for HP and Motorola.
More generally, the move is indicative of the consolidation going on in the
software space, as well as the push for management software to help
developers, and by extension businesses, manage their application processes
from a dashboard view. That is to say, administrators want a single,
console-like approach to managing their networks. It also demonstrates the
branching out of an open-source group to a more commercial arena.
In Enlite Networks Founder and CEO, Dr. Gopinath Ganapathy, CollabNet is
getting a 15-year veteran of the technology, software and electronics
industry. Dr. Ganapathy left Cadence Design Systems to launch Enlite
Networks. Before Cadence, he was the chief technology officer at Silicon
Valley Research. He also owns seven patents in architecture, testing and
design.
For Dr. Ganapathy, the synergy was obvious.
“For the past two years, Enlite Networks has built a strong team of
enterprise software experts, who have been developing core technologies to
address the growing need for a Web-based system for globally and
organizationally dispersed research and development teams,” said Dr.
Ganapathy in a public statement. “CollabNet has already established its
leadership in enabling Web-based global collaborative software development
across a multitude of industries. I look forward to joining the talented
engineering team at CollabNet and running a world class organization.”
