31 October 2002 Software tools vendor Borland has acquired its highly-rated rival TogetherSoft in a cash and stock deal valued at $185 million (€187.5m).
TogetherSoft has been growing fast on the increasing popularity of its suite of Java development tools. It achieved revenues in its last quarter of $14 million (€14.2m) and boasts more than 4,000 customers.
The company claims that its flagship ControlCenter integrated development environment (IDE) has competed effectively against Rational Rose and Rational XDE from Rational Software. It claims that more than 115 companies have replaced Rational software with TogetherSoft ControlCenter since June.
Borland CEO Dale Fuller has promised to continue development of TogetherSoft’s ControlCenter product alongside Borland’s highly popular JBuilder IDE. Borland will also continue TogetherSoft’s strategy of providing design and analysis products that work with competitive IDEs.
However, during the next 12 months, both companies’ product lines will be merged onto a common technology platform. This will help cut Borland’s product development costs.
“By tightly integrating TogetherSoft’s design and analysis technology with Borland’s development solutions, we will enable companies to create business applications more quickly and to compete more effectively,” said Borland CEO Dale Fuller.
The deal is expected to be closed before the end of the year and marks Borland’s recovery from its nadir of mid-1999. Then, the company was weeks from running out of money before a cross-licensing deal with Microsoft gave it a vital injection of funds.
Infoconomy profiles:
Borland is one of the few software vendors to enjoy rising sales”
TogetherSoft integrates Java development
