Cisco to buy Tidal Software for $105 million

Cisco this week said it intends to acquire Tidal Software, a privately-held maker of application management and automation software for service-oriented architectures and data centers. 

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Cisco will pay approximately $105 million in cash and retention-based incentives for the company, which was founded in 1978 and is based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Houston.

Cisco says Tidal’s software will help it enable customers to optimize the performance of their business applications and automate operations in real time, which will reduce operational costs. Tidal’s software capabilities extend from the server through the network to the desktop.

The company’s Intersperse software combines application management, business process tracing and run-time monitoring across multiple application servers to build a detailed view of SOA applications and environments. The software, Tidal officials say, enables the proactive detection of problems, problem localization and root-cause analysis. In some cases it can help IT managers create self-healing capabilities in their SOA deployments.

Intersperse is used by ING Direct, Lehman Brothers, Mizuho Corporate, NYSE and Omgeo, among others. Tidal has established technology partnerships with Microsoft, Oracle and SAP for management of those companies’ applications.

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Cisco's 2009 fiscal year, which closes at the end of July. Tidal Software will become part of the Cisco Advanced Services organization.