Gartner has acquired Burton Group, a research and advisory services company that specializes in technically in-depth information, for US$56 million in cash. Burton Group has 41 research analysts and 40 sales and client services associates that Gartner says will help expand its opportunity to provide product and service offerings in the IT research market. In a statement, Gartner’s CEO Gene Hall said that the acquisition will broaden the company’s reach beyond its traditional focus on providing services for senior IT executives to frontline IT workers. Gartner projects that the acquisition costs will dilute its earnings per share by approximately $0.12–$0.10 in 2010, but expects it to contribute as much as $0.03 per share in 2011.
Progress Software announced it has purchased business process management technology company Savvion in a deal valued at approximately US$49 million. Savvion sells a BPM suite that Progress president and CEO Rick Reidy said will “enhance our goal to provide unprecedented business visibility, responsiveness and business process improvement, coupled with the highest degree of data integrity and integration.” Progress envisions combing its Business Event Processing, Business Transaction Assurance and Integration portfolio with the Savvion suite to help its customers detect system bottlenecks, better respond to threats and opportunities via real-time event processing, and achieve end-to-end process visibility, according to the company.
IBM’s Software Group has been divided into two divisions: the Software Solutions Group and the Software Middleware Group, it has been reported. According to InformationWeek, senior VP Steve Mills announced the changes in an internal memo. Calls to IBM for comment were not returned by press time. Former Lotus executive Mike Rhodin will head the solutions unit while Robert LeBlanc will lead the middleware group, according to the report.
To raise capital, Salesforce.com intends to offer US$500 million in convertible notes to qualified institutional buyers, and it expects to grant the buyers an option to purchase up to an additional $75 million in notes. The company said it will use the money for general corporate purposes, including possible acquisitions or joint ventures.
Sauce Labs, created to make cross-browser testing with Selenium easy, has received an initial investment from the Contrarian Group. Terms were not announced. Sauce Labs also has released Sauce IDE for creating Selenium tests. The IDE offers parallel-capable speed and ease of setup, according to the company.
CA has won its lawsuit against Ingres, a result of CA’s spinoff of the database unit. Delaware’s Court of Chancery ruled that Ingres must live up to its contractual obligations to provide product updates and support to CA and its customers. When CA spun off Ingres in 2005 after acquiring it in 1994, the deal included a clause saying that Ingres would fulfill maintenance and support obligations, and allow CA to perpetually embed Ingres in its products. Ingres argued that it was not bound to offer new software to CA customers.
