Micro Focus announced its intent to merge with HPE’s Software Business Segment for approximately US$8.8 billion today. The merger is still subject to closing conditions, but the transaction is expected to finalize in the third quarter of 2017. Also, with this merger, Micro Focus and HPE announced the intent to enter a commercial partnership naming SUSE as HPE’s preferred Linux partner.

The merger between the two software vendors will create large infrastructure companies that will be able to drive software innovation across traditional and emerging marketplaces.

The deal is also an “opportunity to achieve a significant increase in the scale and breadth of Micro Focus, by combining with a business operating in market segments adjacent and complementary to our existing portfolio,” according to Chris Livesey, CMO of Micro Focus.

(Related: Micro Focus acquires Serena Software)

The combination of both Micro Focus and HPE Software’s technology will give customers new choices as they look to maximize the value of existing IT assets and leverage business logic and data along with next-generation technologies, said Livesey.

“This transaction will give us significant additional product breadth and a substantially larger customer base, not to mention access to an extensive network of highly effective business partners,” he said.

HPE Software’s product portfolio offers solutions in categories like IT operations management, software delivery and test, enterprise security, information management and governance, and Big Data analytics. With these categories, Micro Focus will be able to innovate new technologies that have the lowest possible risk.

Also with this merger, Micro Focus and HPE announced their intent to enter into a commercial partnership naming SUSE as HPE’s preferred Linux partner. The companies will explore additional collaboration that leverages SUSE’s OpenStack expertise for innovation around HPE’s Helion OpenStack and Stackato platform-as-a-service solutions. HPE and SUSE are currently working together to define the specifics of the commercial partnership.