Forrester Blogs » Category: Acquisitions and Partnerships

Dell Bids To Acquire Storage Vendor Compellent

Posted by Andrew Reichman on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on December 9, 2010

Blog post info and actions

  • 4 Recommendations

Blog post body

Andrew Reichman

It’s no surprise that Dell is bidding on independent storage vendor Compellent as they are still licking their wounds from the loss of  3PAR in a head to head megavendor bidding war which ended with HP winning (?) at $2.4BB.  Dell announced today that they have offered $27.50 per CML share, which equals around $876MM, and represents a discount of around 17% to the $33 CML was trading at when Dell first made the offer (increased significantly over the past couple of weeks by speculators anticipating such a deal).  The discount is a surprise -- 3PAR and Isilon (bought by EMC for $2.2BB in mid November) had similar revenues, employee counts and customer counts, so I had thought that the $2BB mark was the going rate for established independent storage firms, but then, I’m not a financial analyst, so maybe I’m missing something there.

What I do know is that it is hard for Dell to say in September that they are willing to spend $2BB+ on a storage vendor, and then when they don’t win, to say that the EMC partnership and their EqualLogic products is all they need. EqualLogic has been a great product in the SMB end of the market and a big revenue generator, but hasn’t moved Dell into the realm of enterprise IT leadership that they so crave.  The EMC deal has limited margin for Dell as a partner, and doesn’t establish them as a visionary provider with the chops to solve big enterprise problems.  So, it’s no surprise that they felt they had to do something.

Read more

Categories:

GSI Gains Control Of Intershop: What It Means

Posted by Brian Walker on the eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals Blog on April 29, 2010

Blog post info and actions

  • 19 Recommendations

Blog post body

Brian Walker

On April 14th, GSI and Intershop announced that they had entered into a licensing and distribution agreement. As a part of the agreement, GSI gains a minority and controlling interest in Intershop. With a relatively small ownership stake of 10.5%, GSI will have significant influence over Intershop, due to Intershop’s very diluted and diverse stockholder base. This gives GSI control over one of the oldest and most established eCommerce software solutions in Western and Central Europe. Additionally, under the agreement GSI will have exclusive rights to distribute Intershop’s solutions in the Americas and also have access to Intershop’s software, engineering talent, and integration experience.


What the agreement means:

Read more

Categories:

Farewell Sun, Nice Month For Larry Ellison

Posted by Andrew Reichman on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on March 3, 2010

Blog post info and actions

  • 5 Recommendations

Blog post body

Andrew Reichman

Now that the dust has settled on the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems, I have to say a bittersweet farewell to the first global tech firm I crossed paths with as a young intern. I have to say that as an analyst over the past three and a half years, I had a tough time working with Sun Storage: the patchwork portfolio, the revolving door leadership style, the $4Billion dollar oil and water acquisition of StorageTek and deeply questionable corporate marketing efforts.

Read more

Categories:

Welcome To The Cloud Market, CA

Posted by James Staten on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on February 24, 2010

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

James Staten

If anyone doubted CA Inc.’s intention to get into the cloud computing market, you can’t get away with that skepticism anymore. This company is serious. Its acquisition of early cloud leader 3Tera takes their nascent cloud entreaties to an entirely new level.

Read more

Categories:

Opalis Was NOT Acquired By Microsoft

Posted by Glenn O'Donnell on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on November 6, 2009

Blog post info and actions

  • 16 Recommendations

Blog post body

Glenn O'Donnell

Glenn O'Donnell

The IT management software and operations communities have been buzzing this week about reports that Microsoft acquired IT process automation vendor Opalis Software. We have unequivocally confirmed that this rumor is incorrect. Opalis has NOT been acquired by Microsoft. It remains an independent entity, at least for now.

Opalis, based outside of Toronto, has repeatedly reported impressive revenue growth over its short history. For the past few years, it has been a desirable morsel for larger vendors seeking to add strong process automation to their portfolios. Many have expressed interest, but its success allows Opalis to command a high premium that no suitor has yet been willing to pay.

Read more

Categories:

CA Buys NetQoS: A New Network Management Juggernaut?

Posted by Glenn O'Donnell on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on September 15, 2009

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Glenn O'Donnell

Glenn O'Donnell
CA is a vendor that already enjoys a leading position in overall network management. Its 2005 acquisition of Concord, which brought along the assets of the previously acquired Aprisma, instantly moved CA from an also-ran to one of the clear leaders. Concord was good, and CA has an impressive track record of growing that business since the acquisition. Still, there were some weaknesses with regard to more advanced performance analysis.

On September 14, 2009, CA finally addressed these performance gaps by announcing its intent to acquire NetQoS for $200 million. Based in Austin, TX, NetQoS is one of those exciting small companies that proved there is a better approach to many of the challenges we face. It is one of the true innovators in performance management of both infrastructure and applications.

Read more

Categories:

HP Acquires Cluster File Storage Software Vendor IBRIX

Posted by Andrew Reichman on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on July 17, 2009

Blog post info and actions

  • 2 Recommendations

Blog post body

Andrew Reichman

Andrew Reichman
Today, HP announced that they will be acquiring the startup cluster file storage software firm IBRIX in a deal with few disclosed details. Congrats to HP for making another interesting acquisition in the clustered storage space, following their Feb. 2007 acquisition of Polyserve and their October 2008 acquisition of Lefthand. IBRIX makes software that allows users to cluster many nodes of storage (either industry standard servers or iSCSI/FC SAN arrays) for use in high performance global namespace file storage.  IBRIX’s customer base includes some 175 firms, generally in the high performance compute (HPC), video rendering/animation, and oil and gas exploration spaces.

Read more

Categories:

Configuresoft Nicely Fills an EMC Gap

Posted by Glenn O'Donnell on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on May 30, 2009

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Glenn O'Donnell

GlenodonnellEMC continues to tease the market with its management software ambitions, taking another step this week to build on its portfolio. On May 27, EMC announced its intent to acquire Configuresoft, a vendor of server configuration and change management (CCM) software. Forrester views this as a positive development for both companies but we eagerly await more.

Read more

Categories:

Oracle Shakes the Eco-System

Posted by Holger Kisker on the Vendor Strategy Professionals Blog on April 24, 2009

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Holger Kisker

Since the announcement of Oracle to acquire Sun Microsystems you can find a lot of thoughts on the web about Oracle’s main motivation behind the deal, the portfolio mapping of the two giants and how Oracle would leverage pieces of the new assets or possibly sell-off some again.

Please read this Forrester Report for more insights.

 

Oracle continues to assure they are not planning to depart from any of their new assets. If we believe in this mantra the consequences to the whole IT eco-system are severe. It is the first time that a large application vendor expands into the hardware territory and forces us to redefine the traditional view of IT market segmentation – again.

 

·        Changing IT Markets Force Everyone to Rethink

Read more

Categories:

Covetus The Sun Installed Base

Posted by James Staten on the Infrastructure & Operations Professionals Blog on April 20, 2009

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

James Staten

James Staten The value of Sun’s Solaris installed base proved its worth once again this week as Oracle found it too tempting to pass up and pulled the trigger trumping IBM. A large percent of Oracle’s most profitable customers run their Oracle wares on Solaris and for them to fall further into the hands of the mortal enemy alone justifies the purchase. Sure, Oracle gains complimentary IP in Java, MySQL, and a very competent services organization but most of the rest is likely to end up off Oracle’s books.

It’s not every day that we read about a software maker buying a hardware company and that in itself is perhaps the biggest sign of things to come from this acquisition. Oracle, like Microsoft, enjoys healthy profit margins from a software-only business model. While Oracle is far more consulting-heavy than its Redmond rival, it profits rise above IBM, HP, Cisco and others because of its low cost of goods. Sun’s server and storage businesses don’t fit with this model and certainly don’t justify the further investment in the SPARC microprocessor that will be needed to keep this business healthy. So despite Oracle’s statement that, “Oracle plans to engineer and deliver an integrated system -- applications to disk -- where all the pieces fit and work together, so customers do not have to do it themselves,” expect Oracle to shop these units tout suite. Dell and HP are likely to bid for these businesses and do a strategic alignment on product collaboration like HP’s last year on the Oracle Data Warehouse.

Read more

Categories: