Microsoft closes UMT deal

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday announced the close of the company’s deal to purchase software and other assets from portfolio management software vendor UMT.

Speaking at the Microsoft Office Project conference in Seattle, Ballmer also divulged some details about upcoming releases of Microsoft Office Project and Microsoft Office Visio. Both will be part of Microsoft’s Office overhaul, code-named Office 12, which is expected to be made available later this year. Office 12 is currently in beta.

Microsoft unveiled its plans to purchase intellectual property from UMT in December and has closed the purchase of the part of UMT’s business that develops software. The consulting arm of UMT remains a separate entity, the UMT Consulting Group, according to the terms of the deal. Additionally, members of UMT’s executive team and some product development employees also have joined Microsoft’s Office Project team.

The next version of Microsoft Office Project will focus on providing more visibility into a company’s business processes by integrating technology from software acquired by UMT, according to Microsoft.

One way UMT assets will benefit Office Project is to enable data federation across a company so employees can more easily access work being done in the entire organization. The software also will make projects easily to manage by visually displaying updates as they happen, Microsoft said.

Microsoft Office Visio 12, the next version of Microsoft’s business and technical diagramming software, will allow users to connect to more data sources, such as data stored in Office applications Excel, Access and SharePoint Portal Server, as well as Microsoft’s SQL Server database.