BMC Snaps Up Marimba

BMC Software Inc. said Thursday it has agreed to acquire Marimba Inc. for $239 million in cash and plans to use the company's technology to expand the capabilities of its software that ties systems and applications management with business objectives.

BMC will pay $8.25 for each Marimba share. It expects to complete the acquisition in its second quarter, which runs from July to September, pending approval from regulators and Marimba stockholders.

News of the planned takeover drove Marimba's stock price up $3.20, or 65.7%, to $8.07 on the Nasdaq. BMC's share price fell $1.45, or 7.4%, to $18.05.

For the last couple of years, BMC has been on a buying spree to build out its products that collect data from computer systems and applications and link the information to service-level agreements. This connection makes it possible for BMC software to detect when service-level agreements may be missed and take automated steps to prevent it. In marketing terms, the process is called business service management.

Following the acquisition, Marimba's software change and configuration management technology would be incorporated in BMC's Remedy software for IT-service management. That software includes Remedy change and asset management products. Remedy and BMC's Patrol software are core elements of the company's business service-management offering.

Marimba president and CEO Rich Wyckoff said in a statement that the combined company will give customers "a single vendor that delivers a complete change and configuration management solution tying together process-based asset and change management capabilities with policy-based discovery, patch management, and software distribution."

Among BMC's largest competitors in system and application management are Hewlett-Packard and Computer Associates.