Borland Software continued its buying spree Wednesday with an announcement that it has signed an agreement to acquire TogetherSoft, North Carolina, a maker of software design and analysis technology. Borland will pay US$185 million in cash and stock for the privately held company.

The acquisition of TogetherSoft will add that company's ControlCenter product to the Borland product line. ControlCenter is a software development collaboration and modeling tool that enables software developers to coordinate their development efforts.

The company also comes with a customer base that includes companies such as Charles Schwab & Co. Inc., The Home Depot Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and Sprint Corp. TogetherSoft has a worldwide sales and R&D (research and development) organization, with development centers in Russia and the Czech Republic in addition to their operations in Raleigh, according to Borland.

Borland announced that it would continue investment in both its JBuilder and TogetherSoft's ControlCenter products while also looking for ways to combine the features of those products into hybrid development suites.

The deal, which has yet to be approved by TogetherSoft's shareholders, is expected to increase Borland's revenue by between $60 million and $70 million in calendar year 2003, according to Borland.

This is Borland's second purchase of the month. On October 9, 2002, Borland announced that it had agreed to purchase application development software maker Starbase Corp. of Santa Ana, California, for $24 million in cash. Starbase's products allow developers to manage software application design, testing, and deployment.

Borland's other purchases this year include Redline Software Inc. of San Jose, California, in January and Highlander Engineering Inc. of Lakeland, Florida, in May.

Assuming that both the Starbase and TogetherSoft transactions are completed in 2002, Borland expects 2003 revenue of between $355 million and $370 million, according to the company.