The talk in tech is software consolidation. Deals like
Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) joining with
Veritas (Nasdaq: VRTS) and
Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) with
PeopleSoft (Nasdaq: PSFT) are getting much of the buzz.
But behind the big headlines, there are many more software deals. In fact, one of the key consolidators has been mostly under the radar: EMC (NYSE: EMC).
During the 1990s, EMC was the dominant storage hardware provider and became a darling for investors. But in the past few years its industry was disrupted, and EMC made the bold move of going on a mergers and acquisitions spending spree. Targets have included VMware, Legato Systems, and Documentum.
The latest addition came this week with the $260 million purchase of SMARTS. Yes, the company is a software provider. And its technologies are highly complex.
The employee base looks more like the faculty of a top university, teeming with Ph.D.s. The founder of the company, Dr. Shaula Alexander Yemini, gave an in-depth technical description of her company while on the conference call. Before creating her company, she built IBM Research's distributed systems software technology.
No doubt, customers understand what SMARTS has. Basically, the company develops technologies for network systems management, along with event automation. Its InCharge software models and analyzes the interrelationships and behaviors of any IT environment to locate root-cause problems, as well as present solutions.
The market for storage is fiercely competitive, with biggies like IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ). In fact, the Symantec-Veritas deal also points to the fact that customers want much broader storage solutions.
EMC's deal with SMARTS will certainly help in this effort. And, with its many corporate customers, EMC should be able to cross-sell SMARTS' solutions aggressively. Well, it really has no choice; after all, the price tag comes at a steep 4.5 times 2004 revenues.
Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares mentioned in this article.
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