March 11, 2010
By

D.H. Kass

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Computer Associates Inc. said it will purchase Nimsoft Inc., a platform provider for managed services, for $350 million in cash, in a move to augment its cloud computing portfolio.

Nimsoft adds to CA’s recent acquisition haul that includes Cassatt Corp. a maker of data center management software; NetQoS, a provider of software to track network and application performance; Oblicore, a developer of service level management software; and, a planned purchase of 3Tera, a cloud services provider.

CA said that Nimsoft strengthens its position among what it is calling “emerging enterprises,” or companies with revenues of $300 million to $2 billion, a segment that the vendor said will generate up to 25 percent of software spending in its target markets by 2013.

Nimsoft primarily aims its sales efforts at mid-market organizations, a sector to which CA historically has not tended, and managed service providers, an audience central to the growth of cloud computing.

CA also suggested that Nimsoft will help it in international markets where cloud computing and managed services are taking hold.

CA officials said that Nimsoft will operate under its Cloud Products and Solutions Business unit.

“With our planned acquisition of Nimsoft, CA will be equipped to capture several important growth market segments, including emerging enterprises, emerging national economies, and the MSPs who are providing these customers with IT management services via the cloud,” said Chris O’Malley, CA executive vice president, Cloud Products and Solutions Business Line.

Nimsoft chief exec lauds fit

Gary Read, Nimsoft president and chief executive, said that the companies fit together well.

“CA and Nimsoft are a perfect match,” Read said.

“We are joining a company that wrote the book on enterprise management,” he said. “We’re bringing a very strong track record of success in the hosted and managed services segment and with mid-market enterprises.”

Read, along with the majority of Nimsoft’s 120 employees, will be joining CA when the acquisition is completed by the end of March, 2010.

Nimsoft last year formed a 31-member alliance, called the Unified Monitoring Alliance, framed on a technology initiative that allows customers to monitor both internal and external applications and systems—beyond the data center to hosted, cloud and SaaS-based applications--in one view.

Included in the association are providers of managed, hosted and cloud-based services and developers, all of which are linked by offering product and service enhancements and extensions to Nimsoft’s monitoring platform.

In addition, Nimsoft last year contracted with Ingram Micro to sell its portfolio of managed services under the distributor’s Seismic banner, its platform of managed services solutions.

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