Compuware announces this morning their intention to purchase Gomez, one of the two major forces in web application monitoring services (the other one being Keynote). This is a very interesting and potentially game changing move in both the end user experience monitoring and the application performance management (APM) markets.

Gomez has a leading SaaS solution for desktop/laptop web application monitoring, and a burgeoning SaaS solution for mobile based web application monitoring. Compuware has a leading solution in active and passive end user experience monitoring as well as a full solution for end to end application performance management. The combination of both technologies opens a broad horizon, as it is clear that 1) both passive and active end user monitoring technologies are required to completely cover availability and performance from the end user standpoint; 2) that more and more web based applications are accessed through mobile devices; 3) that more and more clients are inquiring about SaaS passive end user experience monitoring and 4) that APM is one of the growing segment of the IT management software market, and one where Compuware is aggressively marketing their solution. From a pure strategic standpoint, augmenting their services by providing application performance management isa natural direction for Gomez and augmenting their capabilities by adding to their already broad monitoring capabilities and reaching into the SaaS market isa natural move for Compuware. The fact that Compuware can now reach into Gomez installed base (and vice versa) is of course a plus.

In the short term, iintegrating information from Gomez into anAPM solution becomes a strong argument in favor of Compuware's new strategy, and providing an integration between web monitoring services and Compuware's passive monitoring and APM is a plus for Gomez customers. Longer term, the combination of the two could lead to an SaaS end to end application performance management solution, something that should have a strong market appeal.

Just after the acquisition of NetQoS by CA, a new acquisition "rocks the IT world". It shows clearly that APM and end user experience management are now solidly intertwined and form one market. It also shows that HP may have missed out on an opportunity when acquiring Mercury (Mercury was providing, albeit on a far more limited scale, both active SaaS monitoring and a passive appliance).

 Regards,

JP Garbani