abednarz
Executive Editor

Compuware’s Gomez buy nets Web performance expertise

Opinion
Oct 8, 20093 mins

Goal is to provide a unified view of application performance across the enterprise and Internet

As a combined company, Compuware and Gomez aim to deliver a unified view of application performance across the enterprise and Internet, along with troubleshooting and resolution capabilities.

IT pros responsible for application delivery are being tasked with optimizing the performance of business-critical apps not only inside the firewall but also across the Internet. A key challenge is getting adequate visibility into how Web applications are behaving outside the data center – and incorporating that data into enterprise-centric performance management processes.

That’s one of the reasons behind the impending union of application management vendor Compuware and Web optimization specialist Gomez. Yesterday Compuware announced plans to acquire Gomez, which specializes in monitoring and managing Web site and Web application performance, for $295 million.

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The combined company will be able to provide IT pros with a unified view of application performance across the enterprise and Internet, along with troubleshooting and resolution capabilities, company executives say.

Customers want one source of truth to be able to identify and solve application performance problems, and understand the impact of those problems on the business, said Compuware President and COO Bob Paul during a briefing with press and analysts.

“We don’t have this offering today. We do great performance monitoring behind the firewall, with some visibility outside through our agentless monitoring. But to actually have real-time data coming in from anywhere in the cloud, in the Internet, down to the last mile of where that application is being used on a mobile device or a laptop or client – it just doesn’t exist today,” Paul said.

Combining the two vendors’ technologies will give enterprises “a single view across all the assets they own, and all the assets they don’t own that are required to deliver information and process information beyond their firewall,” he said.

The Gomez technology also will give a boost to Compuware’s existing troubleshooting and repair capabilities by providing better data about what’s happening on content delivery networks and ISP networks, for example.

“I can immediately identify where [in the application delivery chain] the problem is occurring, allowing much quicker time to resolution and minimizing or eliminating the impact this will have on customers who are spending more and more time leveraging applications on the Internet,” Paul said.

Based in Lexington, Mass., Gomez took in approximately $47 million in revenue in 2008 and has roughly 2,500 customers worldwide. Compuware expects to retain Gomez’s 272 employees, and the Gomez management team, including CEO Jaime Ellertson, will continue to lead the group.

abednarz

Ann Bednarz is the executive editor of Network World. Ann is a longtime IT journalist and has spent 26 years writing and editing for Network World, where she has worked as a news reporter, managed product testing and reviews, and developed features and how-to articles for an audience of network professionals and data center managers. Over the last two years, she has conceived and edited award-winning content for Network World that includes 2025 Jesse H. Neal Award finalists, 2025 Azbee Award regional winners and national finalists, and 2024 Eddie & Ozzie Award finalists.

Ann holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture and spent the early part of her journalism career writing about architectural design and construction. In her free time, she keeps those skills alive through DIY projects.

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