News

• Potential bidding war emerges for Quest Software

  A number of parties have submitted bids to acquire Quest Software, which announced in March that it was going private via a US$2 billion stock buyback in partnership with equity firm Insight Venture Partners.

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  Systems management, cloud services likely in Dell's software acquisition plans

  Dell's formation of a new software group, which was announced Thursday, could be the forerunner to a string of acquisitions by the vendor, with some observers predicting a focus on systems management and cloud services provisioning.

• Wall Street Beat: Tech mergers cover range of IT

  Steve Jobs' death raised question about directions in technology this week while worries about the economy continue to put downward pressure on tech stocks, but for much of the industry it's been business as usual, especially for mergers and acquisitions.

• BMC buys app performance vendor Coradiant

  BMC has purchased Coradiant, maker of software for improving end-user experience and tracking Web application performance, the company said Thursday. Terms were not disclosed.

• BMC supercharges IBM DB2 for mainframes

  Exploiting recent hardware enhancements that IBM added into its System z mainframe servers, enterprise software provider BMC has updated its line of performance tuning products to help customers get more from the latest version of the DB2 database.

• Wall Street Beat: Business software, e-commerce shine

  With most tech bellwethers having reported financial results, the earnings season is coming to a close, but BMC, NetSuite, AOL and IAC results this week offered insights into aspects of business IT and the Internet sector.

• Big Iron 'not dead': BMC

  Despite growth in alternatives to mainframes, big iron will not vanish from data centres any time soon, BMC has claimed.

• Wood Group IS takes service desk to cloud

  Moving its service desk to the cloud has been a breeze so far for Perth based Wood Group Information Solutions (WGIS), the external IT service provider of energy services company, John Wood Group.

• BMC Software will add more SaaS products

  BMC Software is planning to offer more versions of its software in the SaaS (software as a service) model in the next 12 months, as it is seeing growing customer demand for these services, an executive of the company said on Friday.

• Monash Uni looks at shared services initiative

  Monash University is rolling out a shared services initiative set to strengthen buying power with standardised hardware and software platforms and improve IT services for its 50,000 students.

• BMC buys app automation tech aimed at virtual, cloud environments

  BMC Thursday announced it has acquired privately-held Phurnace Software in a deal that BMC says will help it deliver technology to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying Java applications into virtual and cloud environments.

• BMC buys Tideway for component tracking tools

  BMC Software said Monday it has signed a deal to buy London startup Tideway Systems, which makes software for tracking and analyzing IT system components. Terms of the deal, which is expected to be concluded this week, were not disclosed.

• Beware cloud lock-in: BMC CTO

  Cloud management tools may be being used by cloud providers to lock organisations in to specific hardware and services, according to the US chief technology officer (CTO) of BMC, Kia Behnia.

• BMC buys MQSoftware, bolstering middleware management

  BMC on Monday said it has bought MQSoftware, maker of middleware that helps companies monitor the performance of IBM's WebSphere MQ software, as well as other platforms. Terms were not disclosed.

• Oracle-Sun: Apps, systems management coup for customers

  Oracle's US$7.4 billion bid for Sun might win customer favor, industry watchers say, as the sum of the two companies' management technology portfolios will provide much greater value than the stand-alone parts.