Management vendor Quest Software Thursday acquired privately held ScriptLogic, paying $90 million in cash to grab the developer of life-cycle management software for Windows-based systems.

Quest plans to fit the ScriptLogic suite of desktop, server and Active Directory management tools into its Windows management portfolio, which includes tools for Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server and migrations.

Quest plans to use its new tools to expand its support for managing Windows clients and servers in small-to-midsize businesses (SMB). ScriptLogic has more than 19,000 customers in that market, the company says.

Quest officials say the main reasons for acquiring ScriptLogic center on its focus on desktop software and SMBs, and its channel distribution model.

“This gives us a footprint on the desktop, where traditionally we did not have anything but some management through group policy that was limited,” says Scott Davidson, Quest vice president and treasurer. “Also, the sales model goes through a two-tier distribution with resellers and [value-added resellers], which is different from the Quest model of direct sales.” Davidson says the ScriptLogic management team will be kept in place to continue to run products through that channel and potentially introduce some Quest software to that sales model.

Slightly more than two weeks ago, ScriptLogic unveiled a new product to manage Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 called Security Explorer for SharePoint. It is expected to ship next month.

In April the company updated its flagship product, Desktop Authority, to support Vista migrations, and last year it added an imaging tool, Desktop Authority Image Center, to the product lineup. In January of this year, ScriptLogic updated its Security Explorer software for Windows.

Quest also has been busy upgrading its management lineup. In April, Quest added directory-forest recovery tools to Recovery Manager for Active Directory software, and introduced InTrust Plug-in for Exchange, which enables real-time tracking of the access and activity of mailbox owners. Late last year, Quest released a tool to move public folders from Exchange to SharePoint Server 2007, and added provisioning capabilities and cross-platform identity services to its Active Directory tool lineup.