IBM's New Year's resolution last year must have been to buy software companies. After all, it snapped up 11 of them (12 if you count completion of the Micromuse deal announced in 2005), ranging from separate billion-plus-dollar deals for FileNet and Internet Security Systems to smaller purchases of point players Consul and Webify.

The deals could deliver Big Blue into new customer accounts and enable it to make headway in emerging technology areas such as service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Several of the software buys, such as CIMS Lab, MRO Software and Rembo Technology, are designed to bolster IBM's Tivoli software unit, adding financial asset management, automated provisioning and virtualization management to the IT suite that manages system software. Others, such as the purchase of Palisades Technology Partners, strengthened IBM's standing specific vertical industries, in this case mortgage lending.

Here's a closer look at the companies that IBM landed last year and how those acquisitions could pay off.

Micromuse

Primary business: Network event and fault management software.

Founded: 1989

Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.

Employees: 650

Acquisition announced: Dec. 21, 2005

Deal closed: Feb. 15, 2006

Cost: $865 million in cash

What IBM gets: Products for managing converged data, voice and video networks, plus the ability to introduce Tivoli to Micromuse's large carrier customers. IBM followed suit with fellow management software makers such as CA (which bought Concord Communications) in adding network-specific expertise to its product portfolio.

Rival HP has traditionally been seen as the leader in network management. Through its Micromuse purchase, IBM also picked up security event management vendor GuardedNet and Quallaby, a maker of performance management software that sold mainly to service providers.