451 Group's Dennis Callaghan proved to be prescient when he recently predicted that the SOA acquisition wave would resume in earnest this year. Dennis, who I know from my Midrange Systems days, looked at the ripening market for consolidation, particularly SOA Software's acquisition of LogicLibrary earlier in May, observed in a recent bulletin that "we expect that the SOA Software-LogicLibrary deal won't be the last in this space this year." (Full report available here at ebizQ.)
And sure enough, Progress Software turned around and bought up two SOA-related companies -- IONA and Mindreef. (Dennis' report was published June 8, before the acquisition.)
Dennis said the time is ripe for new acquisitions due to the economy at large and the maturing state of SOA: "As SOA deployments go from proof of concept to production and economic uncertainty filters its way through the software industry, the time appears ripe for more deals to be made, either because small companies won't be able to stand on their own in trying economic times or because larger companies will look for new growth drivers as maturing SOA deployments require the licensing of more management software."
Dennis predicted that IONA would be one of the companies acquired. Future deals may include IBM buying WebLayers, and Fujitsu buying Managed Methods. AmberPoint is a potentially good target, and could be scoffed up by SAP, HP, or CA -- though it seems intent on remaining independent for now.
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