* Management vendors choose to buy rather than build, leading to consolidation
The management software market has been consolidating in selected areas, with vendors opting to get technologies quickly through acquisition, rather than through building them.
One area that has experienced consolidation is identity management. Examples of companies that have been acquired include Access 360 (by IBM), Waveset (by Sun), and Select Access and TruLogica (by HP). The interest in identity management is closely connected to the development of Web services management.
Another area of management that has consolidated is server provisioning. As vendors seek to develop more automated and efficient means of provisioning servers, provisioning technologies are being snapped up. Some examples of acquisitions in this area are Jareva (by Veritas), Consera (by HP) and ThinkDynamics (by IBM). These technologies are important to some of these vendors’ corporate initiatives: Utility Computing (Veritas), Adaptive Enterprise (HP) and On-demand (IBM).
The electronic software distribution segment has also seen acquisition activity. Vendors have acquired specific technologies to fill out their product sets. Examples include Miramar (by CA), Wise (by Altiris), Red Carpet (by Novell) and Novadigm (by HP). The reasons for acquisition in this area are not singular in nature. Each situation seems to have reasons specific to the acquiring vendor. Interestingly, software distribution technologies may take on an important role as vendors build out their server and desktop management automation strategies. Although there have been several examples of acquisitions in this segment, there are still a slew of vendors out there.
These are just a few of the management areas that have experienced a lot of acquisitions and consolidations. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all areas of consolidation in management technologies, just an illustration of some of the changes that have occurred in the management market recently.
I predict that this trend will continue in selected segments, because vendors will continue to fill in their management strategies, and because crowded spaces naturally consolidate.
One area that may eventually see some consolidation is patch management. Many vendors are jumping into this “hot” area, including entrants from the security market, configuration vendors, and software distribution vendors. Although this market is boosted by well-publicized security exposures, particularly for Windows, the number of vendors rushing in will eventually over-saturate the market.
Also expect to see more consolidations stemming from the need to integrate management. In today’s market, it can be more cost-effective and efficient to acquire rather than build from scratch. The maturity of the acquired technology pushes vendors that much more ahead of schedule. In many cases, these acquisitions offer ITers more robust or advanced products.
